Elliott Bales, Stephen Patrick Martin, Jacob Thompson and Warner Miller bring their A-games to 'Purlie Victorius.' The play runs at Studio Theatre in D.C. through June 28. Photo by Teresa Castracane Photography

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The 1961 play Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch skewers racism with humor and a plot that the Marx Brothers would approve. The 2023 Broadway revival was nominated for six Tony Awards.

Every actor in Studio Theatre’s current production, directed by award-winning director Psalmayene 24, brings their A-game to the table.

The dapper and smooth-talking Purlie Victorious, played with impatient passion by Broadway actor Warner Miller, has returned to Georgia to buy back and re-open his father’s church.

Ordained only by his own melodious voice, Purlie initially meets with skepticism. As his suspicious sister, Missy Judson, D.C. audience favorite Kelli Blackwell brings her consistent warmth and skill to the role, anchoring the play with her good sense.

To win back his church, Purlie brings ingenue Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins to impersonate a cousin who is owed an inheritance. Danaya Esperanza plays the orphaned Lutiebelle with a dazzled innocence paired with plenty of backbone. Though her task is short-lived, Lutiebelle makes clear to the young reverend that she’s meant to be a permanent part of his life.

Purlie’s chief obstacle is Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee (Stephen Patrick Martin), his former enslaver, who keeps his sharecropping farmers under his thumb as he tries to maintain a life as close to antebellum as he can.

But the captain’s control is being thwarted by his son, Charlie. Played by John Sygar, Charlie is another innocent with a backbone, firmly on the side of civil rights. His enlightened views were shaped more by Idella Landy, the housekeeper who raised Charlie after his mother died, “almost before you were born,” as she puts it, than what his father calls the “propaganda” of his northern college education. As Idella, veteran Broadway and television actress Lizan Mitchell steals every scene she’s in with her dry delivery (“I didn’t know he had been thinking lately”) and droll expressions.

Purlie can’t confront Ol’ Cap’n without the support of his brother-in-law Gitlow Judson, the “trusted Negro.” Gitlow, whose oversized vanity mirrors that of his boss, is proud to be appointed Deputy for the Colored. But Gitlow, skillfully embodied as both foolish and knowing by the versatile Jason Bowen, consciously impersonates a simpleton, speaking with careful omission and singing (beautifully!) to comfort the soppy Ol’ Cap’n.

When Purlie encounters the old Confederate, they are squared off verbally and sartorially (thanks to costume designer Cidney Forkpah). Purlie, splendid in a dark, fitted tailcoat, faces the older man, pompous in his white three-piece suit that calls to mind Colonel Sanders.

Comedic moments, serious themes

When Purlie, on the spur of the moment, awards Ol’ Cap’n the fictitious “Great White Father of the Year” as a distraction, Martin radiates satisfaction.

The Sheriff (Elliott Bales) and Deputy (Jacob Thompson) do their bit as bumbling law enforcement. At the same time, their presence marks one of two spots where the comic tone of the play takes a pause.

When they are commanded to arrest Purlie, my nervous system focused on the guns in their belts, but fight choreographer Robb Hunter diffused the threat of violence by staging the melee as a slow, flailing swirl of bodies.

Later in the play, Purlie finds a distressed Lutiebelle. When Gitlow scoffs that Old Cap’n has only kissed her, despite how shaken she is, Purlie fires back, “And what do you suppose he’d a-done to me if I’d a-kissed his [girlfriend]?”

The answer is unspoken but shakes us as it must have the playwright, Ossie Davis, who wrote this play six years after the murder of 14-year-old Emmet Till. When Purlie runs off to defend Lutiebelle’s honor, the audience fears the worst.

Current relevance

One technique that keeps the play fresh are lines that jump over the fourth wall, pulling the audience into the present and diffusing tense scenes.

When Ol’ Cap’n accuses Purlie of theft, for instance, Lutiebelle snaps, “Who kept me in slavery from 1619 to 1863, working me to the bone with no Social Security?” (Of course, it was FDR who denied Black workers Social Security, but that’s a different story.)

When the play opened in 1961 with playwright Davis and his wife, actress Ruby Dee, in the lead roles, some activists complained it would make their struggle seem less serious or that it would let white audiences laugh their way past a recognition of their own racism.

Whatever their reservations, audiences then, as now, must have felt a burst of emotion when Purlie thunders, “We want our cut of the Constitution, and we want it now. And not with no teaspoon, white folks — throw it at us with a shovel!”

After more than 50 years, the play holds up because the writing is funny, the actors are superb and, most of all, it inspires us with its focus on flawed humans seeking community and freedom.

The play runs about 100 minutes with no intermission. Ticket prices are $42- $105, with a $5 discount for those over 62 and half off for former federal workers affected by recent layoffs.

Studio Theatre is located at 1501 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C. Parking is available in partnership with the Spot Hero app or at the Washington Plaza Hotel. For tickets, visit studiotheatre.org or call the box office at (202) 332-3300.