As the play's title suggests, the performances of The Violet Hour -- titled after that New York twilight moment when day fades into night -- are strikingly delicate. The production, set in 1919, is serious, yet hilarious; charmingly old-fashioned, but simultaneously relevant; thought-provoking, yet entertaining.
Act One introduces the predicament of upstart young publisher John Seavering (fourth-year Matt Fletcher), who finds himself wedged between the desperate pleas of two potential first clients.
Seavering's lively college pal, Denis McCleary (fourth-year Scott Keith), urges him to transform his manuscript, three crates-worth of pages, into a polished publication that will elevate his reputation and win him the hand of meatpacking heiress Rosamund Plinth (Brandy Maloney).
Meanwhile, Seavering's "coffee-colored" lover Jessie Brewster (Richelle Claiborne) combines professional levying with romantic wiles to entice Seavering into publishing her memoirs, an achievement that she hopes will forever brand her name in history. The hilarious ranting of Seavering's officemate, Gidger (Jude Silveira), lightens the whole tangled predicament.
Then enters a peculiar contraption -- a Xerox-like machine that, in a flurry of activity, spews out paper containing events in history. Not past, but future. News arrives declaring the invention of the television, among other things, and the fates of the very characters in the play.
The overall effect is a fusion of elements from Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener," Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and NBC's television series, The Office. Hour offers audience members quirky employees, the ability to look at history from the outside and even some forbidden romance.
Although each of the five cast members delivers noteworthy performances, those of the University's very own, Matt Fletcher and Scott Keith, truly inspire.
Playing an "ambitious young professional," not unlike himself, was both a "danger" and a "gift," Fletcher said. While the script enabled moments of true authenticity, other scenes demanded close attention to the idiosyncrasies of a complex character.
Fletcher took on these subtle nuances of the play's leading man in effortless stride, transitioning gracefully between moments of sarcasm, contemplation, bewilderment and romance.
Similarly, in taking on the role of an energetic young optimist, Keith identified closely with his character, Denny. Full of romantic persuasions and flighty imaginings, Denny could have been easily overacted. To Keith's praise, he was not. It was fun to "bring out a lot of sides of Denny," Keith said. He certainly does this well. His performace creates a larger-than-life character.
Although The Violet Hour offers shining performances and some weighty issues to ponder, it refrains from taking itself too seriously. There is a finely judged balance of candor and humor, a feat articulated by the performances of a talented cast. Its characters unwittingly poke fun at both a contemporary audience and the play itself. During a serious moment, Gidger, as informed by the prophetic machine, heralds, "We are never again eating red meat!" In a later scene, he incredulously proclaims that at the end of the century there will be signs on theater doors that say "this production contains smoking," making light of Live Arts' friendly warning.
On a more serious note, Fletcher commented on the play's meaning.
"A first reading [of the play] can be deceiving," he said, but he believes the production is ultimately about "how language effects how we view the past."
As news of the future whirls onstage page after page, his character becomes "obsessed with words," finding himself caught up in a moment much like the violet hour in which the present is delicately suspended in the face of an inevitable future.
Keith admires Live Arts' tradition of choosing ambitious productions that "seek to challenge." Working at Live Arts has shown Fletcher that Charlottesville doesn't revolve around University arts; that there is a longstanding arts scene supported by a local patronage -- one less transient than an ever-changing college cast and audience. The Violet Hour is an excellent reason to heed the invitation of the play's leading men and venture beyond Culbreth for a different dose of fine drama.
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