There are at least two ways to watch "The Color Purple," the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that opened the Powerhouse season at the Milwaukee Rep Saturday night and runs through Nov. 2.

One is to sit on the edge of your seat and pay close attention to all the plot twists and turns of the 40-year journey that is the life of Celie, a Southern black woman subjected to unimaginable horrors before triumphing at the end of the almost three hour long production.

The other way is to relax, sit back in your seat and let the spectacle of music, costume and dance overwhelm you into an awfully enjoyable night of musical theater.

I heartily recommend the second approach.

Walker's book is a very frank and very moving story of a young woman who is brutalized for much of her life, beginning as a 14-year-old mother of two, with her father being the suspected culprit. Celie is then sold into marriage to a man called "Mister" who furthers her degradation. When asked why he beat her, he explains, "Because you my wife." Enough said.

Walker’s book is immense, filled with dozens of stories – many of them told by Celie through letters to God. There is a power in this book as we are move at an excruciatingly slow speed to a climax that has Celie freed from her bonds of poverty, color and fear.

There is nothing slow about the musical version of the play, adapted by the outstanding playwright Marsha Norman. The story careens ahead at full speed, often interrupted by music that reminds us of what just happened and paves the way for what’s going to happen next.

You could easily go dizzy trying to keep straight all the things that happen to Celie, from the separation from her sister Nettie; to her introduction to fleshly pleasure by Shug Avery, a glamorous torch singer; and to her increasing self-reliance as she is left alone looking for the fighter inside. She refuses to buckle under and instead finds things in herself she never knew were there.

Having said that, it’s important to realize that this is a spectacular production, fully realized by Milwaukee Rep artistic director Mark Clements, who has a special gift for staging big musicals. In this one, he creates a rhythm coursing through the opening night audience in powerful fashion. So seductive is this production that I half expected the audience to start dancing in the aisles and in their seats so seductive.

Clements is helped immensely by the talents of musical director Dan Kazemi and choreographer Amy Hall Garner.

The play also delivers some of the most magnetic actors and singers to grace the Rep stages in recent years.

As Celie, Zonya Love is a dynamic powerhouse. She was last in Milwaukee two years ago doing "Blues in the Night" at the Stackner. The intervening years have only sharpened her acting skills and honed a beautiful voice, which easily carries the emotions of Celie from a 14-year old unwilling mother to an almost 60-year-old victor in life. Her precision truly captures the fear, sorrow, loneliness and eventual triumph of Celie.

This is truly a women’s play. The group of women who carry this along includes Jessie Hooker, who plays the wannabe singer Squeak; Stephanie Umoh, who plays Celie’s sister Nettie; Christina Acosta Robinson, who plays Shug Avery, the juke joint star who is mainly responsible for Celie’s rise to power; and Bethany Thomas, who plays Sofia, a giant of a woman with a giant heart for all her sisters. If there is a scene stealer in this production, it is Thomas, who provides both gravity and humor in her role as the enforcer. The audience loved everything about her.

These women are a force field that surrounds Celie, and they all show her the way she can grow stronger by letting that field inhabit her body.

Every story about women finding their center of power needs an evil for them to overcome and fight against. And the most evil of them all is Mister, played by Milwaukee native Nathaniel Stampley. His cavalier and dastardly treatment of all around him, with special attention paid to Celie, puts him clearly on the pedestal so the women have someone to knock off.

This story invites emotional investment – indeed it demands it – but Saturday night I felt less of a connection to these characters than I expected. While the script and the acting were spot on, I couldn’t help but feel that almost too much was being crammed into this play in order to tell the complete story told by Walker.

There were some special moments in this production, perhaps none more so when Shug, who has rescued Celie from the clutches of Mister, speeds up the process of healing with a tender ballad that tugs at the heart. Staring into each other’s eyes, Shug the playgirl displays the inner depth of her heart as she tries to convince Celie, who has a lifelong crisis of confidence, that she must realize her innate gifts.

"But when I see what’s in your heart
All the rest is blurred
The grace you bring into this world’s
Too beautiful for words."

The crescendo in this production comes in the exquisite "Hell No" when the women suddenly realize how much power they could have. Sofia starts the song off.

"Learn how to fight back
While  you’re still alive
You show them girl
And beat back that jive.
Cause when a man
Just don’t give a damn.
Hell No! Hell No!"

It may well be a "hell no" that is at the heart of this play, but it’s a "hell yes" if you want an evening of some of the best, warmest music you will see on stage all year.