The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess
By
George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin
Adapted by
Directed by
Choreography
Media Coverage
“Porgy and Bess,” a show about black people, created entirely by white people, has never been a favorite of black audience. Diane Paulus’s great achievement is to cut through Heyward’s muddy folklore and to present us with us something more profound. Her Porgy (the beautiful Norm Lewis) and Bess are not archetypal “black lovers”; they are a man and a woman, human beings who are not defined by their race. By ridding the script of its sociological and anthropological strain, Paulus allows us to see the people and, perforce, to hear the music.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/09/26/110926crat_atlarge_als#ixzz1YcicE1qR
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/09/26/110926crat_atlarge_als#ixzz1YciVKWUL
The Paulus-Parks Porgy is a streamlined, intimate, musically ravishing show.....faithful to what counts most - Gershwin's lush, bluesy, irreplacable score. That makes it a revival not to hound but to hail.
“Greater Boston” takes an in-depth look at the production and talks to the cast and creative team of Porgy and Bess to find out their opinions on the changes made to the piece. The special feature also captures a glimpse into the production that currently plays at the Loeb Drama Center and offers a series of extended interviews with McDonald, Lewis and director Paulus.
Here and Now host Robin Young interviews Norm Lewis, playing Porgy in 'The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess' at the A.R.T.
This stunning adaptation of the Gershwin classic is the most extraordinary shows productions Boston has ever seen. The production unfolds almost magically, thanks to flawless lighting, glorious orchestrations, stellar vocals and an immensely talented ensemble.
The first strains of “Summertime” sent chills through my skin. Lullabying the baby in her arms, Nikki Rene Daniels’ Clara lilted the lyric, “and you’re mama’s good lookin’,” with a boastful half grin. Oh yeah, she’s the good lookin’ mama. I had never gotten the joke before. Instantly, the familiar pop song was transformed into the expressions of a new mother with fresh and urgent feelings to convey. That kind of move characterizes this production. It’s full of strong acting choices that pull you into the play’s present and invest Gershwin’s sublime score with specific, immediate drama.
The ART’s vibrant and stirring production of “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess’’ makes some revisions, but Paulus and adapters Suzan-Lori Parks and Dierdre L. Murray are largely faithful to the spirit and the structure of the original. And in Audra McDonald, this production boasts a Bess for the ages.
So shoot me, Porgy purists. To my mind, the retooling of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess for American Repertory Theater, intended to make the iconic folk opera work as a Broadway show, is compelling enough to push past quibbles. And in Audra McDonald it boasts a Bess as pained as she wrestles her devils as she is languorous and melodious in her delivery of the music. When on opening night she and Norm Lewis entwined their voices around "Bess, You Is My Woman Now," toward the end of the first act (there are only two), I thought I'd died and gone to some auditory equivalent of the Promised Land those denizens of Catfish Row keep singing about.
Read more: http://thephoenix.com/boston/arts/126259-i-loves-you-porgy/#ixzz1WqGBf39K
Dear Mr. Sondheim. It ain't necessarily so. While purists, pundits, preservationists and scholars may have qualms about the revised production of The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess which had its official pre-Broadway press opening at the A.R.T. in Cambridge, Mass. on August 31, mere mortals who have no preconceived notions of how the work "should" be presented are in for a thrilling night of musical theater. Powerful, imaginative, and gloriously cast, this intimate yet soaring Porgy and Bess is both timeless and full of life.
As she has shown in the past, Paulus believes in less-is-more staging, and this pays off in her handling of the principals, as well as in the relationships of those living in this ghetto. "Porgy and Bess" bustles with a sense of community with subordinate characters expressing the facets of its diversity.
Stephen Sondheim, of all people, should know better than most of us to withhold judgment about a musical until he sees it.
But not only is the new version thoroughly respectful toward the original opera, its changes are mostly subtle and, as far as I’m concerned, improvements on the original. It is a real triumph, Diane Paulus did a great job. This is by far the best production of Porgy and Bess I have ever seen.
There will always be a few nights at the theater that I will remember my whole life, when I was swept up in something truly thrilling and sublimely beautiful. Last night was one of those nights. I sat transfixed at the A.R.T. as Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis sang us to Nirvana in the new adaptation of PORGY AND BESS, a once-daring new opera that put the largest entirely black cast on the American stage for the first time--Boston's Colonial Theater to be exact--in 1935.
Director Diane Paulus puts the “revive” in “revival,” staging a lovely, engaging, heartfelt production of “Porgy and Bess,” a musical that, to paraphrase Mark Twain’s description of a classic, everybody praises but no one ever stages.
Operatic aspirations are replaced with the accessibility, theatricality and showbiz savvy of a Broadway musical in Diane Paulus' bright, beautiful and tuner-centric re-envisioning of "Porgy and Bess."
The A.R.T. Takes on the Gershwins' Classic and Preps it for Broadway
Reinventing an American Classic with Stronger Title Characters and a More Upbeat Ending
"Suzan-Lori Parks, the Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright of “Topdog/Underdog,” and Diedre Murray, the musician and composer, are developing a new version of “Porgy and Bess” that features rearrangements of George Gershwin’s famed score and plays down its roots as an opera. The show is scheduled to debut in September at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it will be directed by Diane Paulus, the theater’s artistic director." -The New York Times
A re-imagined Porgy and Bess will open the A.R.T.'s 2011-2012 season. “ ‘Porgy and Bess’ has this incredible place in our lives as a classic opera now,’’ Paulus said. “The idea here was to give it a life on a musical stage.’’ -The Boston Globe
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