Theatre in Review: Violet (Roundabout Theatre Company/American Airlines Theatre)Violet Karl is on a pilgrimage, and you could say the same thing about the show that contains her. Violet, the musical, opened at Playwrights Horizons in 1997 with an eye firmly fixed on Broadway; thanks to a not-so-hot Times review, however, it wasn't able to cross the short distance separating Theatre Row from the Main Stem. In one of this season's most unexpected developments, a concert staging at Encores! at City Center's Off Broadway festival last summer reignited interest in the property, leading to a better-late-than-never Broadway debut a mere 17 years after the fact. And the good news about Leigh Silverman's production at the American Airlines is that in every way it improves on the original, starting with a superb cast of actor/singers. In the title role of a young North Carolina woman who has lived for years with a terrible facial scar and is bent on having it removed by a faith healer, Sutton Foster reveals why she is one of the most distinctive musical theatre leading ladies at our disposal. She fully captures Violet's awkwardness, especially her hunched posture and the poker face with which she greets the stares of appalled strangers. But she is no shrinking Violet; she is possessed of a gritty determination and a total inability to tolerate fools. In the amusing number "Luck of the Draw," she comically proves her bona fides as a card sharp, too. Indeed, whatever her physical and emotional scars, it is quickly established that Violet is immune to pity. Waiting for the bus that will take her to Tulsa and (she hopes) a miracle, a local townsman asks her if she is going somewhere. Fixing her best basilisk stare on him -- it's enough to freeze a wild animal in its tracks -- Violet sings, "Is this a suitcase? Is it mine?/Am I waitin' by the candy stand/Beneath the Greyhound Station sign?/Have I got a ticket in my hand?/Stupid./The people of Spruce Pine are stupid." Unusually, Foster combines a voice both brassy and sweet with an easy way with comedy and a brutal honesty when the occasion demands -- qualities that make just about the ideal Violet -- and I'm betting that you will be more than willing to go along for the ride with her. On her trip, Violet becomes emotionally entangled with a pair of soldiers reporting for duty, and again Silverman has found the right men for the job. As Montgomery, who has broken his mother's heart by enlisting in the Green Berets, Colin Donnell is an appealing roughneck, the kind of restless youth who is bored to death with living in Podunk and is hell-bent on finding adventure, even if it means ending up in the jungles of Vietnam. (The year is 1965, when Americans hadn't yet fully grasped the price to be paid in Southeast Asia.) Even when announcing his intention of trawling through Memphis in search of booze, babes, and barbecue, it's clear that underneath his joker's smile Monty yearns for something more, something he doesn't really feel he deserves. Joshua Henry applies his stunning voice and engagingly understated manner to the role of Flick, a black soldier who finds himself tentatively reaching out to Violet. In an evening with no shortage of showstoppers, Flick's anthem of self-assertion, "Let It Sing," delivered with a revivalist fervor, is one of the finest. Foster, Donnell, and Henry play together with an easy, bantering intimacy that makes them a pleasure to be with. There are also fine contributions from Emerson Steele as Violet's equally tough-minded youthful self; Alexander Gemignani as her father, whose negligence caused her disfigurement; Annie Golden, scoring doubly as a sweet old lady who befriends Violet and as a boozy dame who roams the streets of Memphis looking for men and singing the blues; Ben Davis as a world-weary preacher trying save up his energy for the next "show;" and Rema Webb as the golden-voiced lead singer in Davis' choir. (The big revival number, "Raise Me Up," is both transparently fraudulent and thoroughly rousing; it pretty much raises the roof at the American Airlines, thanks to the vocals of Davis and Webb and a dynamic bit of musical staging by Jeffrey Page.) There's a lot to like in Violet, especially a score -- music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by Brian Crawley -- that bends the styles of country-western, blues, and gospel music to the demands of these highly specific characters, creating a nearly nonstop river of melody that propels the action. For all its highly likable qualities, however, Violet never quite manages to break our hearts, for reasons that are built into the narrative, adapted from Doris Betts' short story, "The Ugliest Pilgrim." Crawley's libretto establishes early and often that Violet's life has been ruined by her scar; in one especially beguiling number, she dreams of having eyes like Gene Tierney with bits of Cyd Charisse and Brigitte Bardot thrown in for good measure. However, we have to take her grotesque appearance on faith, because no attempt has been made to show it. (This was also true of the original production.) This is fair enough -- the actor who plays the title role in The Elephant Man is usually quite a looker -- but we are also expected to believe that two handsome soldiers will fall in love with her in less than 24 hours. After a while one starts to wonder what Violet's problem is; it's hard to be both an object of pity and the center of a romantic triangle. Furthermore, except for one passing remark, the libretto never stops to consider the consequences of Violet's getting together with Flick -- in Oklahoma, of all places, just as the country is exploding with race riots. Foster and Henry play together with genuine feeling and sensitivity, but in these scenes, Violet, the musical, crosses the line between being inspirational and being just plain out of its mind. Still, there are moments of high drama; the scene in which she confronts her father, accusing him of secretly loving her scar because it means she will never leave home, packs a legitimate punch. Just about all of the score is easy on the ears. And the production design is sleek and evocative. David Zinn's unit set, a high-gabled structure with an array of signs, easily stands in for gas stations, boarding houses, churches, and many other locations, especially as lit with sensitivity and panache by Mark Barton. Clint Ramos' costumes are exactly right for the period and characters; the transformations he works on Golden are remarkable. (Charles G. LaPointe's hair and wig designs are also helpful.) Leon Rothenberg's sound design could do with a tad more clarity, however; Crawley's lyrics are rather good and they are sometimes overshadowed by the on-stage band. Having finally ended her journey to Broadway, Violet managed to charm most of the first-night press, and one imagines quite a few award nominations will be in the offing in the days to come. Good for her, but the show that contains her is a bit stranded between bitter reality and fairy tale fulfillment. The question of whether Violet's faith will fail her ultimately doesn't seem to matter; her authors have provided her with a conventional musical comedy ending anyway.--David Barbour 
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