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She cooks him macaroni and cheese and red beans and rice. He gives her foot rubs and arranges her dressing room with her leopard-print pillows and knickknacks.

Felicia P. Fields and Stu James are not a couple in real life. But they've been playing one onstage since James was cast as Harpo, opposite Fields' Sofia, in the national tour of "The Color Purple."

Jessica McGowan/jmcgowan@ajc.com (ENLARGE)
Felicia P. Fields gets a kiss from her co-star in 'The Color Purple,' Stu James, at Mary Mac's Tea Room. Fields and James share a friendly bond and like to tease each other about playing husband and wife onstage.
Paul Kolnik (ENLARGE)
Felicia P. Fields (Sofia) and Stu James (Harpo) are shown in character in a scene from 'The Color Purple.'
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That was nearly 16 months ago.

Today, the Tony Award-nominated actress and the Atlanta-born actor fuss, finish one another's sentences and tease each other constantly. "We the husband and wife all the time," Fields jokes.

It's 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, and they have just sat down to lunch at Mary Mac's, one of Fields' favorite Atlanta restaurants. He wants to be at the bank in an hour. She plans to have dessert.

In the musical that runs through Sunday at the Fox Theatre, Fields and James are the unalloyed crowd favorites. Offstage, they are affectionate but not romantically attached — just good friends trying to endure the loneliness of life on the road.

He's single. She's a divorced mother of two college-age children who are back home in Chicago. She's an Aries; he's on the Aries-Pisces cusp. She's sensitive about her middle name. (It's Pearl.) He's hung up on age. (We'll just say he graduated Atlanta's Benjamin E. Mays High School in 1985 and leave it at that.) She has fried shrimp and oysters. He has grilled tilapia.

Like Harpo and Sofia, who are always breaking up and making up, James and Fields have a definite yin and yang thing going. They say their offstage chemistry is what allows them to capture the passion of Harpo and Sofia so convincingly each night.

'I'm so glad we connect'

"What do I always tell you?" Fields asks James, then holds forth for another minute before letting him reply.

"She told me from day one when we started working together that this is a partnership," he finally answers. "Woo! I'm so glad we connect and that we care about each other because if we didn't, that would be a hard role to play."

No kidding. Fields remembers the time another actor playing Harpo had girlfriend problems. She thought it was affecting his performance.

"When I got off that stage, I said, 'Don't you evah!' " Fields recalls, sounding like the fiery Sofia. " 'You and that heifer will not mess up that show! This is where we draw the line. And whatever problems you have with her, you take it to her. Don't you bring it up on this stage with me'."

The actor ended up knocking on her door in the middle of the night to apologize.

Perhaps this was a cautionary tale for James. "I would be afraid to go onstage with her every night, I really would, if we didn't have a connection," he says. Instead, he treats his stage wife like a queen. Example: Fields has been having trouble with her feet, so James told the crew to get her some "fuzzy slippers" to wear between scenes. The other night, to his delight, she forgot about the slippers, and when she propped her feet in one scene, there they were — leopard print and all.

Before each performance, "He comes to my room, takes my feet, has peppermint lotion, rubs my feet down, puts the Band-Aids on the side of my feet, then puts my stockings on," Fields purrs. "Who could buy this, OK? Who could buy this?"

"She deserves it," James counters. "She's a very generous woman. She gives and gives."

A role to love

Being in Atlanta has been emotional for Fields. It reminds her of the 2004 world premiere of "Color Purple" at the Alliance Theatre. She was stressed because she'd been losing her voice in workshop.

"I can remember running down to my dressing room, crying like a baby. When I could see the people jumping to their feet, they will never know what excitement it was for those of us who had been through such a long journey with that show."

Her fans have been the payoff.

She remembers one lady who "had been diagnosed with cancer and saved her money to come. So I stood out there talking to her for the longest because she was like, 'I meant I was coming to see this'."

In "The Color Purple," Sofia fights back when Harpo hits her and later gets beaten up for insulting the white mayor's wife. Sofia's struggle has inspired some women "to take a stand" against their own abuse, Fields says. When people ask her why she's stayed in the show so long, she responds: "What else could I do that would give me the same uplift?"

Lessons and laughs

James didn't catch the acting bug until after graduating from Morehouse College with a degree in finance and working at an Atlanta bank. His first Alliance gig was "Cotton Patch Gospel," and his first Broadway show was "Rent." (He played Benny.)

The last time James played the Fox was with the Atlanta Boy Choir. Now that he's sitting on Harpo's porch, he feels like he's come full circle. And he's learning from his onstage Missus.

"He ain't good at taking notes," Fields ribs. She then proceeds to tell him that he's not pausing long enough during one stop-action sequence.

"I do it," James says. "It's just not the same way that you do it. ... It's just not the Felicia P. Fields way."

Suddenly, it's like Harpo and Sofia going at it.

"We are going to do a long freeze tonight," James says. "I'm not going to move until you move."

"I'll kill you," Fields snaps, laughing so hard she almost wheezes. She's going to finish that peach cobbler now. His trip to the bank will wait.