{blackbabes} 'For Colored Girls' features rainbow of talent

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NEW YORK — At a chic Manhattan art gallery, the stars of Tyler Perry's new film, For Colored Girls, have gathered to check out filmed portraits of their screen characters, and to check each other out in the flesh.

"Everybody looks so beautiful!" gushes Anika Noni Rose, greeting Loretta Devine, Kimberly Elise, Thandie Newton and Kerry Washington. The women agree, and there is talk about earrings, dresses, shoes and the like.

Mind you, the female bonding in Colored Girls, which opens Friday, is weightier than such blithe chitchat would suggest — or than many would expect from the movie's creator. Perry adapted it from Ntozake Shange's acclaimed 1974 theater piece, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, which incorporated poetry and dance and ran for nearly two years on Broadway.

For the Lionsgate film, which also features Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashad and Tessa Thompson, the writer/director/producer wove 14 of Shange's poems into a narrative tracing the sometimes intersecting lives of nine black women who confront a range of crises.

Jackson totally in character

Jackson, who is hosting the gallery event, plays a magazine editor whose sleek style and steely demeanor hide turmoil. "I kept my distance from the other (actresses), because that's what my character did," Jackson says. "It was hard, because I wanted to hang out with them. They seemed to have a lot of fun."

Jackson's co-stars confirm that this was the case — even if they didn't get to spend as much time working together as they would have preferred.

"That was the one bummer," says Washington, who is cast as an earnest social worker. "Sometimes it felt like we would just pass each other in hair and makeup: 'Hey, how's it going?' But I think we all inspired each other."

Newton, who plays a cynical playgirl, recalls: "The first day I came to work, there was all this whispering among the cast and crew about Anika — because she had been shooting earlier that day and had done something extraordinary. I thought, 'I'm going to have to bring something really special to this movie.' "

For Rose, a nurturing dance teacher in the film, "it was thrilling to walk on the set, say, 'Good morning, Miss Loretta,' take the baton and then pass it to someone else later."

Devine, who portrays a love-hungry nurse, notes that "it was only a 30-day shoot, and these ladies all brought their A-game. You can see A and A-plus work everywhere."

The ladies have similar praise for Perry. "I think a lot of people were not expecting him to do something of this quality," Devine says frankly. Colored Girls is Perry's first release on 34th Street Films, an imprint launched in 2008 to complement Tyler Perry Productions, known for his Madea series and for more sentimental serio-comedies.

'Sisters, come with me'

"People may have different feelings about what Tyler has done or hasn't done," Washington says. "But he's built such enormous equity in this business — creative equity — that he was able to get (Colored Girls) done. This piece that is profoundly important to a smaller community, he's taking it out into the world. Many other studio heads would have said, 'I don't know if there's an audience for it,' but here's a guy who builds an empire and applies it to something like this."

Elise nods. "Some people get into that power position and then go off. He didn't leave us. He's saying, 'Sisters, come with me.' "

Elise's character lives with a military veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, one of several men who figure prominently, and not always positively, in the women's lives and struggles. The actresses all are keen to discourage any speculation about "a man-bashing element," as Rose calls it.

"There's so much for men and women to learn from this movie," Rose says. "This is a way to teach your sons and your brothers how not to be. And you can look at the good things men do (in the film) and say, 'See that? That's how we need to take care of ourselves, and our women.' "

Newton sees the film as Perry's "exploration of (Shange)'s material based on his experience with women in his life. ... But it's not just about the female experience; it's about the human experience."

Indeed, the women stress that Perry's take on Shange's vision transcends many barriers, including racial ones. "I understand that (Shange) was influenced by voices of many races," Elise says. "Part of the brilliance of this material is that it speaks to you wherever you are."

Rose believes the movie's title "in some ways refers to the colors we all go through in life. There are days when you wake up raging red, and days when you're stuck under your bed, blue. That's what we're talking about, and that's universal."

Anika Noni Rose (as Yasmine)

Kerry Washington (Kelly)

Janet Jackson (Jo)

Kimberly Elise (Crystal)

Phylicia Rashad (Gilda)

Loretta Devine (Juanita)

Tessa Thompson (Nyla)

Thandie Newton (Tangie)