In the 1997 musical “Violet,” which opens Friday at Palm Coast’s City Repertory Theatre, the title character decides to do something about the hideous scar that has disfigured her face since childhood.
The year is 1964, and Violet is about to travel by bus from her North Carolina home to Tulsa, Okla., “to see this television preacher who claims that he heals and works miracles,” says McKayla Whiteside, a Jacksonville resident who is making her City Rep debut as Violet.
“Violet believes it 100 percent,” Whiteside says. “She has a scar across her face from where an ax blade hit her when she was a child, so she’s going to get her scar healed.”
How gruesome is Violet’s disfigurement? Theater-goers will see it only in their mind’s eye.
The production notes to the play, which is based on the 1969 short story “The Ugliest Pilgrim” by Doris Betts, “definitely indicates that they prefer that you do it without (makeup),” says director Beau Wade. “We’ve kind of played around with that a little bit, because in addition to Violet as adult you also see a young Violet, played by Savanna Dacosta, throughout the play. Sometimes, in key moments, there are indications of the scar with young Violet when older Violet is looking at her in flashbacks.”
That scenario “is a way to have something for the audience to get a sense of what the scar might be, without having it being something they literally will hone in on for the entire show,” Wade says. “Even though Violet does have a scar and it informs a lot of her choices and the general direction of the story, it’s not a show about a scar. It’s a show about people.”
The play, with music by Jeanine Tesori and libretto by Brian Crawley, won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical for its Off-Broadway production, and was nominated in 2014 for numerous Tony Awards for its Broadway run.
Religious faith, particularly Christian faith, “is certainly an ongoing theme throughout the show,” says Whiteside, who works as a paraprofessional and directs theatrical shows at the Morning Star School, a Catholic-supported school in Jacksonville that, according to its website, serves “students with learning differences.”
“Violet is incredibly strong in her faith, so much so that it gets her into trouble,” Whiteside adds.
Along with flashbacks to Violet’s father and her younger self, Violet finds company on her bus journey with two soldiers: Monty, play by Ethan Fink, and Flick, played by Troy Brightson.
“Violet’s faith is selfish, though,” says Brightson, a Daytona Beach resident who works as an assistant division chief of human capital strategy and accountability for the U.S. Census Bureau. “Violet doesn’t love God because she wants to serve him – she loves God because she wants him to serve her. She believes in his power and she wants that for healing instead of recognizing who she’s become.”
However, Brightson adds, “Flick sees how wonderful she is, how funny she is, how outgoing she might be, but she doesn’t believe it. At the same time, she sees into people a lot because she’s very perceptive. She allows people to believe in themselves or to see themselves.”
Fink, a Palm Coast resident who previously performed in CRT’s “Firebringer” and “The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals,” notes that “Honestly, Monty’s biggest trait, and this is a bit crass, is that he just wants to get in women’s pants.”
Yet it’s Monty who “encourages Violet’s faith throughout the show, while Flick tries to deter her from feeling like God is going to be the one to heal her,” Fink adds.
Wade is quick to add that, while Monty is “a womanizer, you get glimpses of something much deeper in him. He puts on a front a lot.”
But faith isn’t the only weighty issue tackled by the musical.
New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley, in his 1997 review, noted that the play “reconfigured” Betts’s short story “to put direct emphasis on parallels between Violet and Flick, who as a Black man in the southern United States knows what it’s like to be judged by your skin.”
Race matters are “very in your face” in the musical, says Brightson, who performed in area productions of “Urinetown” and “Rent,” and is making his City Rep debut.
“I would just say it’s 1964 in the South,” he adds with a sardonic laugh. “Our characters both know what it’s like to be outcast for reasons that you can’t control, that have nothing to do with your character or who you are as an individual.”
The play’s themes are reflected in music that spans gospel, Memphis blues, bluegrass and jazz, with the cast singing to recorded backing tracks.
“The music is written by Jeanine Tesori, a wonderful composer,” Wade says. “There are so many catchy songs and it covers heavy themes, but ultimately it’s a story of hope and looking forward to what your journey will be.”
“Violet” depicts “how hard this journey of life can be when you’re trying to do it by yourself, where your individual differences are used against you, your scars are used to make you less than, or your race is used to make you less than,” Brightson says. “At the end of the day, you need your community, you need the people around you to be able to lean on them, for them to pull you out of dark moments sometimes.”
Referencing his favorite song in the musical, “Bring Me to Light,” Brightson adds: “You can’t always be your own light, and I don’t think we were designed to be our own light. We are all the light collectively as one people.”
“You can’t get through it all alone,” Whiteside says. “It’s about the people you take the journey with.”
–Rick de Yampert for FlaglerLive
City Repertory Theatre will stage “Violet” at 7:30 p.m. March 21-22 and March 28-29, and at 3 p.m. March 23 and 30. Performances will be in CRT’s black box theater at City Marketplace, 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite B207, Palm Coast. Tickets are $30 adults and $15 students, available online at crtpalmcoast.com or by calling 386-585-9415. Tickets also will be available at the venue just before curtain time.
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