Supreme beings

The return of Dreamgirls

by Bill Rodriguez

Dreamgirls made quite an impression when it hit Broadway in 1981. Other musicals had equaled and surpassed the six Tony awards it was to receive. Other shows had paid homage to black pop music, but usually in revues, not with something so lavish and theatrically ambitious. Virtually a Motown opera, complete with recitative rather than extended dialogue linking the songs, Dreamgirls charts the bumpy rise of three talented and ambitious Chicago singers in a thinly disguised quasi-bio of a striving Diana Ross and the Supremes in the 1960s.

A fresh new tour comes to the Providence Performing Arts Center September 30 through October 5, opening an 18-city national trek that serves as one long parade to its Broadway revival in the spring.

The original production earned the kind of top-rank press kudos that producers would die for, or at least kill. Adjectives piled up to the tottering point. Newsweek called it "stunning and stirring." To Associated Press it was "thrilling, lavish." The New York Times came up with "beautiful and heartbreaking" and added that "history is being made."

Small wonder. It had the sprightly choreography of Michael Bennett's, who had enlivened Broadway with A Chorus Line. Playwright Tom Eyen provided a clever book and lyrics, complemented by composer Henry Krieger, who later did the music for The Tap Dance Kid. (Both men are white.) Towering scenic design by Robin Wagner helped herald the current period when epic scale scenery is co-equal with other elements for dramatic effect. No fewer than 300 costumes were designed by Theoni V. Aldredge to gild the glitz.

The set and costume designers have reprised their work for this revival, but Bennett died in 1987, so the new director/choreographer is Tony Stevens. He's a veteran of New York and regional musicals as well as national tours, such as the 20th anniversary tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. His movie work has ranged from the ballroom scenes in The Great Gatsby to the hooker hijinks of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Stevens has designed shows and individual numbers for a pantheon of musical stars, including Liza Minnelli, Bette Midler and Tommy Tune.

Stevens recently spoke from a rehearsal hall in Manhattan, where he was doing some last-minute tinkering with the show's timing.

Q: You're coming down to the wire. What are the finishing touches?

A: Just running it and getting it at top speed. Now that we have all of the elements we have to run it so that we find all of its inner rhythms and motors. I know where I want them but everybody's got to get there at the same time.

Q: The tour opens in Providence. What kind of special energy is there with an opening run?

A: Oh my god, there's just immense energy. Adrenaline's going everywhere. Everyone's really excited. Everybody really wants it to be good. Once we get all of our performances up to speed, then we put all of the physical elements onto it, which is the sets and the lights and the costumes. We have a running joke that the costumes don't know the scenes yet or my shoes don't know the steps yet -- because when you put the other elements on it makes you feel very different.

Q: How old were you when the Motown sound was big? Did you get into the music?

A: That was my era. "Baby Love," [one of] the Supremes' first big hits, was the summer of my freshman year [1964]. Motown was our music -- we were claiming it for ourselves. It was a very new sound, a black crossover pop sound. Even though we didn't define it that way, we recognized it as a great new sound and we loved it.

Q: Your danced with Diana Ross on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1970. What was that like for you?

A: Oh that was like a real kick. Also we backed up, on Ed Sullivan, Gladys Knight and the Pips. Did a show with the Temptations once. To do Ed Sullivan, which was live theater, for millions of people, you thought: "Oh my gosh -- if I screw up, a million people are going to see it!" So the energy backstage for that show was really great.

Q: You're not recreating Bennett's original choreography. Tell me about doing it your way.

A: Well, it's Michael's basic theatrics. His concept was that these people would get caught up in a show business machine. So a lot of his set and the way the thing is structured, you really have to do it that way because his whole concept is written within the peaks. Michael's theatrics -- you just can't beat 'em, you just can't get better than that. But the actual steps aren't necessarily Michael's. And the one reason I don't do that is that a lot of shows get very imitative, with people trying to rubber-stamp, [apply] the original onto a new company. And if you change the staging just a little bit or the steps or a little bit of the blocking with the actors, the actors get to claim it for themselves, and it creates a new life and a new energy. and a new awareness to the piece that makes it live, really makes it living theater.

Q: How does this production rank, in difficulty or challenge, with other revivals you've done?

Dreamgirls is one of those big, old, they-just-don't-do-it-anymore, huge musicals. Every second of it is choreographed and does require care and energy. And there are people moving and relocating, and if there're not on stage they're off-stage changing to come back on. It really is an immense, immense undertaking. The only other show that I ever did that was quite as difficult, I thought, is [The Will Rogers] Follies, which was very difficult that way too.

Q: This music is important to black culture, but Broadway is run by a bunch of white guys, after all. Does Dreamgirls belong to black culture?

A: Oh, it's so important. I care about the show so much because I lived through it. But also, there's one line in the show, when they're going on tour. It says, "We're hitting the road, we're going to play every town/ Even though some are strange, we're going to make this country change/ We'll make it change." And to me that's one of the underlying themes of the show, because they did in fact change the face of American popular music. It's very historically relevant -- people say why do it again? -- and it will always be so because of that. But also the idea of celebrity, how everybody in America wants to be famous and wants to be special, and then what it does to you once you get there, how you've been changed and how you deal with that. I think it truly is more reflective than most musicals of a really important part of our history.