Porgy and Bess

The next show hubs and I saw this theater season was The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, which won an award at the last Tony's for Best Revival of a Musical. As season ticket holders we were invited to a special behind the scenes event where the director, Diane Paulus, discussed some of the background and history of the play and we got to watch some of the tech rehearsal.

Porgy and Bess started off as a novel by DuBose Heyward, which was then translated into a play and then later an opera, before being made into a musical. As a whole I thought the show was very good. Since the musical was adapted from the opera there was a lot of operatic singing, especially by the female cast. which at times made it very difficult for me to fully understand what was going on. Granted that is no fault of the musical...my ears just aren't used to that style and I found it hard to follow at times. Even with the operatic singing I still understood the main storyline, I may have just missed some of the underlying nuances.

Most notably the actors were amazing! In fact they were so convincing that the actors who played the villains literally got booed during the final curtain call. I don't know what was better...the fact that the audience booed them or that the actors loved it. LOL