A VICTORIOUS ROMP
In Ossie Davis’s 1961 play Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch–which opened last night at The Music Box Theatre–all the black residents of contemporary Cotchipee county, Georgia, work on Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee’s (Jay O. Sanders) cotton plantation. They live on his land, in shacks that he owns, and owe money to his store, debts that they can never afford to repay, making them, in effect, Cap’n Cotchipee’s slaves.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
Kara Young and Heather Alicia Simms
The only local not in debt to the Cap’n is Purlie Victorious (Leslie Odom Jr.), a resourceful young black preacher who returns home with a mission to buy back the Old Bethel church, where he intends to preach a different way of thinking and doing, with the aim of empowering and emancipating his brethren. To accomplish this, he plans to trick the Ol’ Cap’n into handing over to him a $500 inheritance, which the bullwhip wielding self-styled Confederate baron is supposedly holding for Purlie’s cousin Bee. “Trick†because, unbeknownst to the Cap’n, cousin Bee is dead. And even though the money legally should go to Purlie as Bee’s next of kin, the idea of trying to get it by legal means is absurd, as he points out to his sister-in-law (Heather Alicia Simms): “He’s a white man, Missy. What do you plan to do, sue him?†To execute his subterfuge, the preacher brings home Lutiebell Gussie Mae Jenkins (Kara Young), a young maid he found in Alabama who is as innocent and ignorant as she is courageous; Purlie wants her to impersonate his college-educated cousin for the Cap’n.
Heather Alicia Simms and Billy Eugene Jones
Jay O. Sanders, Billy Eugene Jones, Kara Young, and Leslie Odom, Jr.
Mr. Davis’s excellent comedy, which started out as a drama–one can easily imagine this story as a bleak tale of agony and hopelessness–does an impressive job of presenting in an entertaining and palatable way the injustices, brutality, and degradation inflicted on American black people in the post-slavery South. The dialogue has a gripping authenticity and the characters are rendered with sympathy and truthfulness; Mr. Davis doesn’t shy away from showing the flaws of his heroes, nor the humanity of his villains. We see Purlie’s ego and propensity for manipulation and bending the truth; we see the “Uncle Tom†tendencies of his brother Gitlow (Billy Eugene Jones), the best cotton picker in the county, whom the Cap’n made “Deputy-for-the-Colored.†And as despicable and monstrous as the Ol’ Cap’n is, the playwright depicts him as very much human without ever diminishing his awfulness.
Kara Young
Kara Young, Heather Alicia Simms, Leslie Odom, Jr.,
Vanessa Bell Calloway, Billy Eugene Jones, and Noah Robbins
Although all the speaking parts in Kenny Leon’s inspired staging of this revival are performed to delightful perfection, Ms. Young stands out. She plays Lutiebell with such a lovely combination of humor and dignity, sincerity and desire, that everything Lutiebell does and all the ways that she is, is at once mesmerizing and exhilarating, and leaves a lasting impression.
Additional cast: Venessa Bell Calloway, Noah Robbins, Noah Pyzik, Bill Timoney.
Noah Robbins and Vanessa Bell Calloway
photos by Marc J. Franklin
Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch
Music Box Theatre, 239 West 45th St.
ends on February 4, 2024
for tickets, call 212.239.6200 or visit Purlie Victorious