The good news is that like the Temptations supergroup that inspired “Ain’t Too Proud,” the show has not become a parody of itself. That’s a real concern for anything that’s lasted as long as the six decades that the Temps have been around, with messes that include having fake groups claiming to be the Temptations.
The Broadway-badged musical, which played Minneapolis’ Orpheum Theatre two years ago, has returned this time at St. Paul’s Ordway Center, its sixth stop on a 50-city national tour.
This second Twin Cities go-round for “Proud” is a nonunion affair, meaning that the actors playing the glamorous Supremes, for example, now move furniture between scenes. (”Baby, baby, where did our love go”?) And at Tuesday’s opening, the tech folks struggled with persistent sound and light issues.
No matter. Director Des McAnuff and choreographer Sergio Trujillo have injected more light and fun into their engaging production. They honor the story’s low moments but find quick ways to pivot into cuteness and laughter from harrowing experiences, whether personal failings or larger ones.
That’s especially true around lead singer David Ruffin (Josiah Travis Kent Rogers). After he has been kicked out of the group because his addictions have made him unreliable, Ruffin keeps showing up at the group’s concerts and grabbing the mic. Rogers bounds onstage like a puppy that has forgotten the messes it made. Many of the numbers in “Proud” ring with similar joy.
Playwright Dominique Morisseau adapted the story from “The Temptations,” a memoir by Otis Williams, the group’s founder and only original surviving member. Rudy Foster, as Williams, narrates the show, taking us into how inventive kids from the Great Migration — Williams was raised by his grandmothers in Texarkana, Texas, before joining his mother in Detroit — pulled spirit-nourishing tunes from their souls.
These entertainers endured personal sacrifices to make timeless music. Morisseau artfully weaves the musical numbers such as “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” “Just My Imagination” and “My Girl” into the events happening in their lives, including drug addiction, relationship woes and death.
“I Wish It Would Rain” is sung beautifully and emotively to cover funeral tears.
