Curiosity 70: Purlie Victorious and Leslie Odom Jr.

The other day on my constitutional around the Frog Pond I listened to Alan Alda and Leslie Odom Jr. in conversation. I adore Leslie, especially from Hamilton, where he played Aaron Burr (here with Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton):

(Or you can see it here, in a more extended clip.)

While calling up that clip, I came upon a revisit of a series Leslie did from backstage about the eight weeks leading up to the release of the filmed version of Hamilton:

All eight original episodes can be found here.

Though I first encountered Leslie and his beautiful, urgent voice and delivery on Sara Bareilles's song "Seriously."

Anyway, I'm a fan, so I was interested to hear about his current role, as Purlie in the 1961 Ossie Davis play Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp through the Cotton Patch (shown here with his co-star  Kara Young, as Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins—originally played by Davis's wife, Ruby Dee). The story, per Broadway.com: "Purlie Victorious is set in an era when Jim Crow laws still were in effect in the American South and focuses on the traveling preacher Purlie Victorious Judson, who returns to his small Georgia town hoping to save the community's church and emancipate the cotton pickers who work on an oppressive plantation." Only Purlie may be a rather more complicated character than he at first appears.

I'd never heard of the play (which a decade later was—as seems to happen—transformed into a musical), though that's not surprising. I haven't heard of most plays... But somehow I have managed to hear of the playwright, more as a director (Cotton Comes to Harlem) and a screen actor (several of Spike Lee's films, including Do the Right Thing, and even Grumpy Old Men). Mostly, though, I think of him as a civil rights activist. The photo here is from the 1963 March on Washington.

There's an excellent discussion of the play and this production in a New York Times review, which calls it "a blazing and hilarious revival" that "throws a comic funeral for racism." And here's a background story about the play, which was based on Davis's own childhood and his father, who grew up deep in Georgia. Or, if you're more aurally inclined, here's an NPR story on the production.

Here is Leslie talking about Purlie, including the attendance of Martin Luther King Jr. at the original production:

Alan Alda acted in the original 1961 production (it was his Broadway debut)—which may be why he invited Odom onto his show. In any case, I'm glad he did, because it introduced me to something new. I wish I could fly to New York and see Purlie Victorious, which ends its (extended) run on February 4.