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review:PORGY AND BESS

    by ToZinman
    Published 

By Toby Zinman

For the Inquirer

If you only know the rich Gershwin music and the gorgeous songs of Porgy and Bess, you might be surprised, as I was, to see this opera-turned-Broadway musical currently on national tour and in Philadelphia until Sunday.  Touted as a radical reinvention of a sacred show, the surprise for me was in how dated it seemed and how little I was moved by the characters or their plights.

Nevermind the controversy about altering the Gershwins' opera that Stephen Sondheim famously weighed in on, leaving scorched earth under director Diane Paulus' feet; nevermind the treatment of a black community that seems to flirt with racist parody.  I was surprised to discover that the show is really an old-fashioned melodrama, with two-dimensional characters and clunky insertions of big dance numbers, with long pauses as the swelling music cues our emotional reaction, and with singers who have fine voices but little acting subtlety.

The story goes like this: in a small poor community called Catfish Row in South Carolina, a crippled man, Porgy ( the excellent Nathanial Stampley) rescues Bess (Alicia Hall Moran), a slutty dope addict, from her brutal lover Crown (Alvin Crawford). When Crown kills a man in a dice game, he escapes the police and Bess resolves to live a decent life with Porgy, despite the temptations of  Sporting Life (the very stylish Kingsley Leggs), purveyor of "happy dust" and dangerous New York dreams. There's another murder; there's a hurricane; there are white policemen.

But neither the plot nor the characters are the heart of the show: it's all about the songs.  The first rendering of "Summertime" by David Hughey and Sumayya Ali, whose voice soars, is splendid. The show ends with Stampley's deeply moving rendering of "I'm on My Way" and an offstage chorus gives it a big Broadway finish. In between those two signature songs there is a beautiful duet as Porgy and Bess sing "Bess You Is My Woman Now," and Leggs as Sporting Life provides a smooth and seductive, "There's a Boat That's Leaving Soon."

Porgy and Bess is a rich musical evening, but not a satisfying theatrical one.

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Broadway Philadelphia at the Academy of Music, Broad & Locust Sts. Through  Feb.23. Tickets $20-105.50.  Information: kimmelcenter.org or 215-893-1955