New Yorker plays Sarah as vulnerable, a young woman in love

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

To play Sarah, Crystal Williams had to go beyond the script to fathom her character.

"There's not much in the book about Sarah; no one knows who she is," said Williams, a New Yorker who has joined the Diamond Head Theatre production. "She's young, I suppose 16 or 17, and an innocent, working as a washwoman. She has very little knowledge and schooling, but she has some common sense."

In the musical, Sarah falls in love with a smooth-talking musician who woos her, along with other women. "Coalhouse always refers to her as more than a woman, a gift from God; as something you can't buy — either you have it or don't."

A baby figures in the relationship; "her lack of knowledge and youth lead to a nervous breakdown and desperate measures."

In playing Sarah, Williams said the operative word is love. "Love is the key to her circle and cycle of life," she said.

Williams met Mary Gutzi in 1997, when the latter played Emma Goldman in the Los Angeles premiere of the show. "It's been a special show to both of us; we've become friends for life," said Williams, who was born and raised in Jacksonville, Fla., but ventured into theater via the dance stage.

"I thought I was going to be in the company of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, but in a career turn, the voice found me," said Williams. "I've been in theater 13 years now and I didn't think I had a voice though I sang in the church choir at 11. The voice inside had to be cultivated, and it took a touring show of 'Sophisticated Ladies' to bring it out. That was my first theater job and the show took me to the Soviet Union in a cultural exchange program where I learned that the Russians really loved Duke Ellington."