Jennifer Holliday: "Dreamgirls"

Many are writing about Jennifer Holliday (Tony Awards, 2021).

"She sounds great."

"That was a Judy Garland-level transaction between singer and audience."

"That was an actual performance, not just two celebrities looking happy to reunite and sing an abridged ditty from 2002...."

But what happens in Holliday's big song? The speaker learns that her dude is leaving her. Though there is ample evidence to the contrary, the speaker says, "You're the best man I've ever known!" She won't go. She appeals to history: "We're part of the same place....We both have the same blood, same mind...." The speaker puts her own weakness on the table: "I don't wanna be free."

Everything builds to a simple, direct, explosive bridge: "Tear down the mountains. Yell, scream, and shout. You can say what you want. I'm not walking out...."

In the actual Broadway production, Effie falls to her knees, and as she sobs, the remaining Dreamgirls appear in the background; they have re-packaged Effie's rant as a top-ten breezy bop. "Love, love me BABY! Love, love me DARLING!" And Act One ends.

So many people claim to want to see depictions of "strength" on stage, or in front of the camera--but Effie is a portrait of weakness (among other things). That's what makes her so exciting and so difficult to turn away from. The main thrust of her song is wrong. She *doesn't* make this guy love her. (But she does rebound, and she invents a new career in Act Two.)

It's always a pleasure to see personal change in a story. "Something has changed within me....Something is not the same...." "I have been changed for good."

"Dreamgirls" gives us one ugly, spellbinding, uncomfortable moment of change.

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