May 3–10, 2001

theater

Could This Be Magic?

Sparkle: The Musical

Freedom Theatre, 1346 N. Broad St., through May 27, 215-978-8497

Freedom Theatre has adapted another popular teen movie, and, under Walter Dallas’ fine direction, Sparkle: The Musical is far more enjoyable than their similarly adapted Cooley High of four years ago. That’s mainly because the doo-wop songs of the ’50s are irresistible, especially for people who danced to them back in the day. I’m talking about songs like "In the Still of the Night," "Get a Job," "Could This Be Magic," "Love Potion #9," "Jim Dandy," " Why Do Fools Fall in Love" and "Twilight Time." I’m talking sock hops. I’m talking junior high. I’m talking greatness.

If Sparkle’s plot is sentimental, the humor cornball, the racial and gender attitudes Stone Age, the rags-to-riches story irony-free and the morality stern, well, hey, it’s the ’50s. Adapted by Ntozake Shange from a 1976 movie by Joel Schumacher still popular in the African-American community, Sparkle: The Musical is a crowd-pleaser.

Harlem, 1959. Open-faced kids jumping rope, laughing and singing, hoping to make a success of their lives with music. Sister (Lizz Fields, with a knockout figure and a voice nearly to match) is the oldest, and she wants out. She also wants all the usual stuff — cars, jewelry, furs — and will trade sex for success. Wicked men, especially the slick, violent Satin (Darren Herbert understudied with much style in the performance I saw), lead her to drugs, blacken her eyes and set her on the road to ruin.

Her younger sisters sing backup for her at the Apollo. Dolores (Nikiya Mathis) ditches show biz as well as Harlem and their hard-working mother, who’s a maid, and heads south for the civil rights movement (which gets kicked to the curb in this show as just too dull and dorky to matter). The other sister, Sparkle (Amina Robinson), is the sweet and loving one, and her goodness is rewarded: The show’s big finale is Sparkle’s concert at Carnegie Hall. Various boyfriends, grandmothers and turns of plot clutter matters up, but eventually all the nice guys win and the bad guys — drug dealers, gamblers and fools of every stripe — lose. Characters say lines like "Livin’ without dreams ain’t livin’ at all." This is a righteous show.

There are some fine voices in the ensemble — especially Sharon Gary-Dixon’s breathtaking three-octave rendition of the hymn "Precious Lord." Fine acting is in scarcer supply, however, and the proceedings often descend into the stilted and the cliché. None of these characters is actually a fully developed person, and so the too-many events of the plot never involve us emotionally. More shoobie-doo and less " I been livin’ in Harlem all my life — I guess I know a rat when I see one" would seem to be the solution here: The play is too long and too predictable, even for somebody who has never seen the movie.

—Toby Zinman