RSS Feed
Twitter
Once you understand why the first act of Richard Greenberg’s “The Violet Hour,” directed by Sharyn Case for the Long Beach Playhouse’s Studio theater took so long to set up (the key is in final sentence), you realize how the structure of this fine show embodied its title. One of the characters defines the violet hour as a unique-to-New-York transition from day to night, whose sweet tint acknowledges your participation in, if not survival of, that particular day. It’s a moment to reflect and consolidate before plunging into the evening, if not the future.
Performances were imaginative and engaging. At times the characters had to speak while facing an imaginary wall or window. To do so they looked out at the audience. These indirect addresses to us that confirmed the identities of each character was not constructed by words on a page but by real people, with depth and emotion, speaking the lines with poetic reverence. They created a supercharged intimation of what would happen if one had the opportunity to look into the future with a not-seen-on-stage contraption — not copier, a fax, or a printer but an oracle — that spewed out pages of stories that showed the way that things would be provided a particular course of action was taken.
The last sentence of the first act apprised us of the machine’s orphic powers. Until that moment the story slogged along in exposition. Slow to develop, the production felt thin. Was it just the story of John (Adam Hale), a young man, with a black mistress on the side, who has to decide which of two books (that of his mistress, Jessie – Doshanna Bell – or his best friend, Denny – Alex Walters) would be the first — if not the last — book he publishes?
The machine accelerated an is-that-all-there-is story into a sweet tale that asks whether we’re governed by fate or free will or whether the question is even relevant. Of course it isn’t relevant, which is the point of the story. This allows us to focus on the fleeting, transient, and lovely present moment described by the production’s title.
The elasticity of his face and his plaintive voice well served Sean Gray’s hilarious Gidger, John’s put-out personal assistant. His exasperation permeated his every little concern, from the unread manuscript he had submitted for publication, his function as John’s gatekeeper/factotum, his dumbfoundedness with that new fangled machine that suddenly appeared in his office and even his relationship with his dog.