Review of the Violet Hour
Robert Sean Leonard has the clean-cut good looks of an unremarkable businessman. He’s the guy in the gray flannel suit on the commuter train, who went from college to marriage and on to paternity without a hitch. Responsibility is his middle name. But it’s his lightly worn officiousness that makes him attractive. You want to unbutton his suit and unleash the passion behind his starched shirt. In a number of plays, ranging from Tom Stoppard’s “The Invention of Love” to Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” Leonard has played a kind of boy-man; awkward at expressing desire, he needs someone who’s emotionally immodest to force him into the act of love.
In Richard Greenberg’s “The Violet Hour” (at the Biltmore), Leonard plays John Pace Seavering (his name is pure, monogrammed privilege), a young New York publisher who has yet to publish his first book. Fresh out of college, Seavering has only enough money to put out one volume, and he must choose between two manuscripts: one by his lover, a black diva called Jessie Brewster (Robin Miles), and one by a former classmate and possible love interest, Denis McCleary (the lyrical Scott Foley). The play is set just after the First World War, and one gets the sense that Seavering’s suggested bisexuality-which was certainly not in vogue then-is a matter less of nature than of necessity: like all good editors, he makes himself available to the talent.
Greenberg, who also wrote the immensely popular “Take Me Out,” has composed a play that has more to do with ideas than it does with characters. Among other things, “The Violet Hour” examines the manufacturing of illusion, the commodification of the theatre, and writers who reinvent the truth in order to suit their emotional state. It is commendable that Greenberg wants to cram so many thoughts into the play, but it makes the plot difficult to follow. “The Violet Hour” has been staged with valor by Evan Yionoulis, and Christopher Barreca’s inventive set and Donald Holder’s clever lighting design do what they can to allay the confusion. Robin Miles, however, does not help the production. Her Jessie is imperious when she needs to be sly, simpering and coquettish when she needs to be fierce and calculating. To be fair, Miles stepped into the role on short notice.
(The original Jessie, Jasmine Guy, left the cast shortly before the opening.) It’s a great part-the black star as a living embodiment of various myths and taboos-but it would take a great actress to make the ideas live, to engender sympathy and repulsion simultaneously. Leonard, ever the gentleman, tries to help Miles find her feet by literally kneeling at them. But she’s too frightened of what he’s offering her: the freedom to act.
Source: New Yorker
In Richard Greenberg’s “The Violet Hour” (at the Biltmore), Leonard plays John Pace Seavering (his name is pure, monogrammed privilege), a young New York publisher who has yet to publish his first book. Fresh out of college, Seavering has only enough money to put out one volume, and he must choose between two manuscripts: one by his lover, a black diva called Jessie Brewster (Robin Miles), and one by a former classmate and possible love interest, Denis McCleary (the lyrical Scott Foley). The play is set just after the First World War, and one gets the sense that Seavering’s suggested bisexuality-which was certainly not in vogue then-is a matter less of nature than of necessity: like all good editors, he makes himself available to the talent.
Greenberg, who also wrote the immensely popular “Take Me Out,” has composed a play that has more to do with ideas than it does with characters. Among other things, “The Violet Hour” examines the manufacturing of illusion, the commodification of the theatre, and writers who reinvent the truth in order to suit their emotional state. It is commendable that Greenberg wants to cram so many thoughts into the play, but it makes the plot difficult to follow. “The Violet Hour” has been staged with valor by Evan Yionoulis, and Christopher Barreca’s inventive set and Donald Holder’s clever lighting design do what they can to allay the confusion. Robin Miles, however, does not help the production. Her Jessie is imperious when she needs to be sly, simpering and coquettish when she needs to be fierce and calculating. To be fair, Miles stepped into the role on short notice.
(The original Jessie, Jasmine Guy, left the cast shortly before the opening.) It’s a great part-the black star as a living embodiment of various myths and taboos-but it would take a great actress to make the ideas live, to engender sympathy and repulsion simultaneously. Leonard, ever the gentleman, tries to help Miles find her feet by literally kneeling at them. But she’s too frightened of what he’s offering her: the freedom to act.
Source: New Yorker