“Violet” didn’t create much of a stir when it opened at Playwrights Horizons in 1997. Composer Jeanine Tesori went on to high-profile Broadway productions like “Shrek” and “Caroline, or Change,” but her youthful entry, while well-reviewed, essentially dropped off the radar — until now.
Wednesday’s one-night-only concert performance, part of the new Encores! Off-Center series at City Center, made a thrilling case for “Violet” as one of the best musicals of the ’90s.
Sutton Foster and the rest of the high-powered cast helped, no doubt. But they basically helped reveal how wonderful “Violet” is.
Set in 1964, the musical follows the title character (Foster) on a bus trip from North Carolina to Tulsa, where she hopes a local faith healer (Christopher Sieber) will remove the disfiguring scar on her face. Rather than wear special makeup, Foster traded her usual can-do spunk for a novel mix of defensive poise and bruised sensitivity.
We go back and forth between a flashback with teenage Violet (Emerson Steele) and the travel scenes, where her 25-year-old self meets a gallery of characters, including a middle-aged lady (Keala Settle, the great belter of “Hands on a Hardbody”) and a pair of soldiers, black (Joshua Henry) and white (Van Hughes). As our heroine makes her way through the South, Tesori and book writer/lyricist Brian Crawley introduce beautiful songs drawing from the blues, country, pop and rock.
Ingeniously directed by Leigh Silverman, this pared-down presentation nailed both the intimate moments — like the tentative bond between Violet and the African-American Flick — and the bigger, va-va-voom set pieces. When Harlem’s Songs of Solomon gospel choir materialized in the Tulsa scene, the City Center audience was nearly delirious with happiness.
Here’s hoping this concert will inspire some producers to bring back “Violet” for a longer journey.