[NEohioPAL] Review of "Violet" at Lakeland Civic Theatre

[Bob Abelman via NEohioPAL]

Lakeland's 'Violet' is a fool's journey worth taking

 

Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

 

If scar tissue could sing, its music would be written by Jeanine Tesori with words by Brian Crawley.  

 

Rarely has a composer and lyricist-librettist joined forces to produce as tender, touching and unconventional a musical about the scars we bear - inside and out - as "Violet," currently on stage at Lakeland Civic Theatre.

 

"Violet" was adapted from Doris Betts' short story "The Ugliest Pilgrim" for an award-winning one-act off-Broadway run in 1997, a staged concert in 2013, and a full-length Broadway production in 2014.  

 

It tells the tale of a horrifically disfigured young woman who, in 1964, takes a bus trip from her back-woods home in Spruce Pine, North Carolina to the healing powers of a TV preacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma,  with stops in Kingsport, Nashville, Memphis  and Fort Smith.  She believes that if her damaged face could be miraculously replaced with Ingrid Bergman's cheekbones and Rita Hayworth's skin, her damaged soul would be repaired as well.

 

It is a fool's journey, but along the way she learns to open herself up to two fellow travelers - soldiers on their way back to camp - and discovers that if she can see beyond one man's skin color and another's beauty to find what lies beneath, she can certainly do the same for herself.  

 

And so can we.



To read more of this review, go to:  http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/features/article_1b1685f0-aa54-11e4-b054-0b35bdaba92e.html
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