Violet: Beauty is as Beauty Does

In the past few years, director John Simpkins has brought several challenging musicals to New York University's Steinhardt School's Program in Vocal Performance. By doing so, he is not only keeping such worthy musicals as Parade, Urinetown, Merrily We Roll Along, A New Brain and Floyd Collins in New York, but is making certain that younger audiences get to see and experience these lesser-known gems.

The most recent Simpkins-helmed musical gracing the stage of the Frederick Loewe Theatre is Violet, an early Jeanine Tesori/Brian Crawley tuner that enjoyed a three-week run at Playwrights Horizons in 1997. Tesori's score is filled with bright gospel, R&B and country music, but like many of the other recent NYU musicals, the story (Crawley's book and lyrics are based on Doris Betts' The Ugliest Pilgrim) is surprisingly dark: Years after an accident left her face terribly disfigured, a devout young woman sets off across the American Southeast of 1964 to be healed by a televangelist. Along the way, she meets two soldiers-- one black, one white-- who offer her a new way of seeing both herself and the world around her. "Next week, I'll come back disguised," she announces as she begins her quest, and she has no idea how prophetic her words are.

Light and dark are the dominant themes of the show, and Simpkins keeps these opposites nicely balanced. Violet lives alone, in darkness, and only steps out into the light to seek healing. And it is no accident that the story is set in September of 1964: The Civil Rights Act had only been passed two months earlier, and the country was still grappling with the idea of white and black people living together as equals. When this sheltered white woman meets two worldly soldiers, she finds numerous roads newly opened to her, each one leading to new possibilities. For every step she takes into the light, she takes another into a scary, uncertain future where lives and livelihoods are not determined by birth, but by choices.

As with any bildungsroman, Violet's emotional growth-- and emotional healing from years of grief-- provide the meat for the songs, making this a very rich but very challenging role for any singer/actress. Without makeup or prosthetics, the performer must make Violet's ugliness visual in her words and deeds, and must make her growth-- her enlightenment-- believable and sympathetic. Happily, young Caitlyn Caughell accomplishes all of this, capturing Violet's wit, rage, inner ugliness and inner beauty all at once in a truly remarkable performance. When belting, her voice sits firmly in the mask, resonating power. When singing soprano, the voice becomes light and delicate, suggesting a weakness hiding under the strength of the belt. While it should come as no surprise that Ms. Caughell is a terrific singer-- after all, this is the program in vocal performance-- the depths that she finds as an actress are quite impressive. She deserves to have a long and successful stage career.

As the two soldiers, Gregory Williams and Rich Krakowski share a strong chemistry that makes their characters seem like they have been friends for years. Krakowski strikes the right balance of charm and smarm as Monty, and when his character is forced to own up to some selfish actions, his pain is achingly poignant. As Flick, a soldier worthy of respect because of his rank but denied it because of his skin, Williams performs with plenty of humor and anger combined. He is the kind of man who laughs because crying is useless, and Williams makes Flick's understanding of Violet's pain apparent from their first meeting. His big solo, "Let It Sing," may not sound as rich as Michael McElroy's rendition on the original cast recording, but he gives it plenty of emotion and passion. Williams' voice is strong, clear, and pure, and he shows plenty of promise as both a singer and an actor.

Two characters in the show exist only in memory, and provide actors with the additional challenge of presenting non-linear character growth. Sophomore Natalie Hinds gives Young Violet plenty of girlish enthusiasm, and if she occasionally overplays the childish nature of the role, it makes perfect sense: The character is a grown woman's memory of herself at many different ages, and with no costume changes, Hinds must play a girl growing from grade school to high school, and she pulls it off admirably. As Violet's father, Ryan Speakman nicely captures the simultaneous grief and humor of a kind man who never wanted to hurt anyone, but doesn't know how to ask forgiveness for the pain he has caused.

Michael Schweikardt's set is an imposing mountain of platforms and staircases that rotates to serve as any number of locations. It's a little overwhelming, but what mountain isn't when you're climbing it? (A nice touch in Simpkins' direction is that until the show's end, until she's ready to climb her own mountain and return home in a different kind of triumph than she expected, Violet barely goes up the set piece, keeping downstage on level ground instead.) Chris Dallos' lighting design complements the light-and-dark motif nicely, creating shadows and light to match the characters on their own roads. Stan Tucker leads the nine-piece band through the score's many different kinds of music with deft skill, setting the scene aurally from the beginning.

There are no heroes or villains in Violet, only flawed humans doing the best they can. And as much of a period piece as the show is, its themes are timeless. We climb our own mountains and make our own journeys and emerge into darkness or light depending on the choices we make. The best of us try to learn from one another. The worst refuse to even look beneath the surface.