A special, one-day encore presentation of the recently presented musical “The Color Purple,” based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Eatonton native Alice Walker, drew another sold-out crowd to The Plaza Arts Center on Sunday.
Also attending was Walker’s daughter, Rebecca Walker, an acclaimed author herself with several works of fiction and non-fiction to her credit.
Rebecca Walker arrived from her Atlanta area home, while Alice Walker appeared via video played for the audience before the play began.
“It’s very good to have this production in Eatonton, not far from the locale where some of the older people lived that I was dreaming about and with whom I actually lived when I was eight years old with it,” Alice Walker said from the screen in an interview recorded several weeks earlier with Taylor Surman, marketing director for The Plaza. “Really have fun with it, enjoy it. Really, really listen to the folk speech, which is what a lot of it is written in, almost a forgotten treasure that people could actually communicate with each other very differently than the way we usually do, very correctly. They were not interested in being correct.
"They were interested in actually helping you understand what they were saying, and they were using all kinds of things to do that,” Walker continued. “So, enjoy it. Just have a really good time, loving the language, loving the people, understanding that they were rooted in a way that many people are not anymore and probably will never be again — but who knows?”
Following the video, Susan Usry, executive director of The Plaza, introduced Rashawd Ford, the 21-year-old director of “The Color Purple” and the inaugural participant in The Plaza’s new Young Directors Series.
“For those who don’t know, today is the first day I launch my nonprofit Visionary Innovative Players (VIP) … and also for those who don’t know, today is the day that I’m going to announce that we will be taking ‘The Color Purple’ on tour,” he revealed to enthusiastic applause. Ford also mentioned VIP has established a QR code to accept donations to support keeping “The Color Purple” on the road.
Usry then introduced Putnam County resident Larry Moore, a longtime close friend of Alice Walker, who presented Ford with a unique gift of appreciation for mounting the first-ever live presentation of “The Color Purple” in Walker’s hometown. Moore gave Ford a purple suit jacket, similar to one he was wearing, but embroidered over the breast pocket with the title, “Executive Director.”
Moore then pointed out another difference in the jacket.
“In the interior pocket you will find a check for sponsorship,” he told Ford. “And Rashawd brought this up, but I invite anyone, everyone, whoever would like to become a sponsor and help them out on their tour on the road, to do so. I mean, he’s representing all of us, representing Eatonton, Putnam County, and the incredible talent we have right here.”
Following a comprehensive introduction by Moore, Rebecca Walker next took the stage to initially recognize some family members and friends before reminiscing about partially growing up in and around Putnam County, but all in relation to the experiences of her mother.
Rebecca Walker described her grandmother, Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker, giving Alice Walker three things when she headed to college: “A sewing machine, so she could make her own way; a typewriter, so she could write her own way; and a suitcase, so she could go her own way. And that’s what my mama did.”
After describing some of her mother’s feelings and beliefs, many of which are depicted and reflected throughout her novel, The Color Purple, Rebecca Walker said her mother also gave her three things as she eventually headed to college on her own.
“She gave me a love of beauty so I could feed my spirit no matter how ugly the world got around me. And she gave me the wisdom to recognize and cherish the good in people so that I would always have hope,” Rebecca Walker said, recognizing “hope” as the third leg of her stool of matronly advice. “And it’s so hard to have hope sometimes. Right now, The Color Purple is about those three things and more.
"It’s about looking straight at the world and calling it like it is. It’s about cultivating your own garden so you can always remember where you came from. And it’s about believing in the power of the goodness of our ancestors and the goodness of ourselves, and most important, the goodness in each other because that goodness at the end of the day is the only thing that can save us, that can truly bring us home.”
To conclude the introductory events to the play, Moore then presented to Rebecca Walker with a somewhat tired-looking copy of Once, her mother’s first published book from 1968 that he’d found in a treasure trove entrusted to him years earlier from Alice Walker’s personal belongings.
Inside its front cover was a heartfelt, personal inscription written by Rebecca’s father.
“Oh my gosh, I know this handwriting. Oh, my God,” Rebecca Walker exclaimed, briefly clasping her hand over her mouth.
She immediately tried to read and decipher the message before admitting it was not easy.
"So, this is inscribed from my father to my mother, and it was inscribed in September of ‘69. So that’s just two months before I was born,” Rebecca Walker told The Plaza audience," she said. “So, it has faded a little bit over the years, and my dad’s handwriting is not really the best, but it’s beautiful. “It says, ‘I shall be forever grateful and feel so lucky, so lucky.’ And then something about ‘Our children.’ So, I mean, this is clearly for me to have. This is so amazing.”
And then, everyone attending thoroughly enjoyed “The Color Purple,” on stage at The Plaza in Eatonton, delivering a standing ovation for cast and crew alike at its conclusion.