It’s taken 22 years for this Jane Tesori musical to cross the Atlantic. She wrote it with Brian Crawley 7 years before her collaboration with Tony Kushner, Caroline or Change, recently revived and now in the West End, which she followed another 7 years on with a collaboration with Lisa Kron for Fun Home, premiered here last year at the Young Vic, and may yet be West End bound. This is a newer one-act version which was on Broadway in 2014
Scarred in an accident when she was thirteen, the 25-year-old Violet begins a journey by Greyhound bus through four states, across half of America, from Spruce Pine NC via Nashville and Memphis to Tulsa OK. It’s the 60’s and civil rights and the Vietnam war preoccupy the country, but her preoccupation is getting to meet a TV evangelist who claims he can heal. Along the way she is befriended by a woman visiting her son and grandchildren in Nashville and two GI’s, one black and one white, one protective and one predatory, both of whom fall for her as she does them.
It’s a journey of a lot more than the miles travelled, during which we flash back to scenes with her dad as both her older and younger self. Tesori’s score is complex, eclectic Americana, largely sung through, with musical twists and turns which keep you on your toes, but it could have done with less volume to bring out the subtlety and ensure all of the lyrics are audible to everyone.
Morgan Large has brilliantly reconfigured the theatre into an intimate traverse space with a revolve which emphasises the sense of travel. I’ve seen Kaisa Hammarlund in many supporting roles, so its great to see her embrace and rise to the challenge of such a difficult lead role. Jay Marsh & Matthew Harvey are excellent as the GI’s and in a superb supporting cast there’s a terrific turn from Kenneth Avery Clark as the preacher. This is the first Charing Cross Theatre co-production with their new Japanese partners, and director Shuntaro Fujita, an assistant to one of my theatrical hero’s, the late Yukio Ninagawa, makes an assured UK debut.
It has its faults, but it’s an original piece which is well worth catching, Kaisa Hammarlund’s performance alone is worth the ticket price.
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