‘Dreamgirls’ provides night of enchantment

Sparkling costumes and eye-popping choreography are hallmarks of “Dream­girls,” but nothing can beat a spectacular song spilling over with emotion.

And “Dreamgirls,” which opened Tuesday night at the Peace Center, had heart and soul to spare.

The Broadway musical is going on 30 years old, but it wore its age well in this pro­duction, which centers on the musical trio the Drea­mettes.

Moya Angela stars as Ef­fie White, the singer with the powerhouse voice who is pushed out of the spot­light in favor of the more conventionally attractive Deena Jones, played by Syesha Mercado. Both women lit up the stage with their emotionally charged solos.

The show-stopping “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” is a centerpiece of “Dreamgirls,” but Angela made it all her own. Her hurt, anger and determina­tion were palpable, her body doubling over in an­guish as she wailed the fi­nal lines of the song.

And near the end of the show, Angela and Mercado harmonized on “Listen,” a cathartic tune that packed years of hurt and remorse into a few minutes of emo­tional vocals. While “Dreamgirls” has plenty of pain and drama, it offers laughs as well. Much of the humor comes cour­tesy of James “Thunder” Early, a blend of James Brown, Little Richard and Prince.

Chester Gregory ably captures the vanity, tem­per, dangerous allure and fancy footwork of Early, who romances but refuses to marry the third Drea­mette, Lorrell Robinson, played by Adrienne War­ren with equal parts spunk and pathos.

While “One Night Only” is a centerpiece of the show, fans are lucky that they have more than one night to catch “Dream­girls.”

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