“The Violet Hour” Gets a Radiant Production at Barrington Stage Company
“The Violet Hour” at Barrington Stage; photo by Kevin Sprague
When Richard Greenberg’s play The Violet Hour opened on Broadway at the newly refurbished Biltmore Theater in 2003, New York Times critic Ben Brantley wrote that it was an “example of the funk that descends when bad casting happens to good plays.“ Now, Barrington Stage has given The Violet Hour a well-deserved do-over with a dream cast that delivers every bon mot with pitch-perfect precision.
Richard Greenberg is one of the most produced playwrights of his generation who made his Broadway debut in 1989 with Eastern Standard (a Yuppie AIDS play with a screwball comedy mien) and had his biggest triumph in 2002 with Take Me Out, the story of the first major league baseball player to come out of the closet. The Violet Hour is the story of a young book publisher in 1919 who must decide whether to publish a book by his charismatic Princeton classmate or by an older black chanteuse who’s also his mistress. (To reveal the play’s deus ex machina would be giving away too much.) It’s the perfect situation for the hyper-articulate, hyper-literate characters Greenberg likes to write, and you can see how much fun each member of the cast at Barrington Stage is having with the language. Everyone gets their turn to be clever, charming, morose, mocking and self-involved, while trading smart banter with other members of the cast.
Like all of Richard Greenberg’s plays, The Violet Hour is ultimately about words and how they come alive when put in the right hands. In Greenberg’s plays, the actors must nail every line; they play a game of verbal ping pong that would implode if anyone lost control for a split second. Under Barry Edelstein’s exacting direction, no one misses a beat and the play moves along so briskly that when it’s over you’re wishing for another intermission and a third act.
William Finn, the composer and lyricist who runs Barrginton Stage’s musical theater lab, was thrilled by the production having been disappointed by the version he saw five years ago on Broadway. As he walked down North Street after the show, he borrowed a cellphone to call the playwright in New York. “I told Richard that he should drop whatever he’s doing and get to Pittsfield,“ said Finn,“ because he will love this production.“ So will anyone who loves what happens when good acting and good writing come together.
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