Porgy and Bess

In 1976 I saw the magnificent production by the Houston Grand Opera Company of George and Ira Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess (libretto by Ira and DuBose Heyward).  I remember sitting in the theatre for almost 15 minutes weeping uncontrollably I was so overcome with the sadness and emotion of the ending and the song “I’m on my Way.”   This story of the crippled African American man and his love of the fast living, drug addict Bess has always been, since that time, the most moving performance of anything I have ever witnessed.

This past month we were truly blessed to see a semi-performed Porgy and Bess at Tanglewood and the brilliant new production at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge.  The Tanglewood performance with the BSO and chorus was sort of half acted out on a concert stage, no costumes or sets.  I suspect to the singers it just made sense to acknowledge the actions taking place rather than just standing there.  This performance was engaging and well sung (of course!) but the chorus was way too large and tended to overwhelm the singers, but this was a very satisfying production.  While the Tanglewood production was a full “operatic” creation the ART has taken a different approach
(with the blessing of the Gershwin Estate) moving Porgy and Bess back to being more of a musical and a little less of an Opera.

Director Diane Paulus, musical adaptor Deidra Murray and playwright Susan-Lori Parks have essentially re-imagined the play, adding bits of dialogue to make the story flow better and make more sense.  They have with great intelligence and respect for the music tried to look at the characters as actual people and create and underpinning of motivation and character development that does not make the story “better” but fleshes it out a bit more (now you have to keep in mind that we (THANKFULLY) saw the production late in the run when the travesty of the much discussed “happy ending” had been removed).

In the ART production Bess (played by the magnificent Audra McDonald) is a battered woman in the modern sense. Porgy (Norm Lewis) is not rolling around on a cart (like Eddie Murphy in “Trading Places”) but walking with a cane, Sportin’ Life (wonderfully realized by David Allen Grier) is a not the flashy cartoonish drug dealer with slick moves but a real lowlife playing on folks weaknesses for sex and drugs.  In this production Sportin’ Life does not want Bess for himself but clearly he wants to pimp her in NY.  Philip Boykin is the best Crown I have ever seen, and gets to the real heart of the true malevolence and violent evil of this character (he was booed when he took his curtain call, much to his delight as he curtsied!).

Is the production perfect, no, the none too subtle scar they put on Audra McDonalds’ cheek was a bit much, I thought the orchestrations were at times a little thin in their attempt to move Porgy and Bess from opera to “show,” the set was classic ART minimalist but at the end of the day none of this mattered.  It all worked and, again, they honored the characters, story and the music.  These are some of the most beautiful and moving songs ever written, focusing the story line a little, modernizing the characters and language simple cannot minimize or denigrate the deep emotion of a well sung and passionate performance of “I Loves you Porgy” and that we had here in abundance.