Porthouse Theatre delivers a deeply stirring ‘Violet’ Bob Abelman Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal Member, International Association of Theatre Critics
From a short story by Doris Betts to a one-act play to a staged concert to a full-length Broadway musical, “Violet” has had quite a journey before finally arriving at Porthouse Theatre.
Which is appropriate for a show that largely takes place on a Greyhound bus and which allows us to share a young woman’s pilgrimage (Amy Fritsche) from her back-woods home in Spruce Pine, North Carolina in 1964 to the healing powers of a TV preacher (Paul Floriano) in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with stops in Kingsport, Nashville, Memphis and Fort Smith. Violet, who was horrifically disfigured and emotionally scarred from a childhood accident, believes that if her damaged face can be miraculously repaired to resemble Ingrid Bergman’s cheekbones and Rita Hayworth’s skin, her damaged soul can be mended as well. It’s a fool’s journey, but along the way Violet learns to open herself up to two fellow travelers – soldiers on their way back to camp and then Vietnam – and discovers that if she can see beyond one man’s skin color (Jared Dixon) and another’s beauty (Ian Benjamin) to find what lies beneath, she can certainly do the same for herself. These discoveries occur by way of deeply stirring songs with music by Jeanine Tesori and words by Brian Crawley. And every song gets our undivided attention, for this play and director Steven C. Anderson’s delicate production of it revel in understatement. For the rest of this review, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/