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A CurtainUp Review
The Violet Hour
By Elyse Sommer
Of course playwright Richard Greenberg, who uses Denny to administer that sly slap on the wrist of the hand that feeds him, is incapable of writing a play that's either predictable or a waste of time. The Violet Hour is no exception. It should solidify Greenberg 's reputation as one of our leading and most versatile dramatists and Robert Sean Leonard who plays Seavering as an actor who consistently tops his last fine performance with an even better one. Elegantly written and staged, and with its time frame just a few years removed from when the Biltmore first opened its doors, this is also an excellent choice to launch the theater's reopening under Manhattan Theatre Club's auspices.
Gidger (Mario Cantone), while an important comic relief character in the play is the only one without the assured sense of living a life of some importance. He recognizes that he's unlikely to seed even a footnote or index listing in the annals of literary history. Even more than most plays, this one poses the critic's dilemma about how much plot to detail without spoiling the element of surprise (shades of Denny's putdown of Faintly the Heart). Suffice it to say that the arrival of a surreal printing machine in Seavering's office on April 1st is not some April Fool's joke but a means for entertainingly and thoughtfully exploring men's desire to peek into and control their future and the way the world will view them. As baseball was a major departure of setting and subject for Greenberg, so is this venture into sci-fi. Unfortunately, while The Violet Hour, despite some bumps in the futuristic second act, is a smart, superbly written play, this New York premiere suffers from bad casting choices. Contrary to what you may have heard, the replacements for the abrupt departures of the two female characters are the least of this problem. Dagmara Dominczyk is a charming and creditable Rosamund. Jasmine's Guy's departure in the middle of a preview performance gave Robin Miles her All About Eve opportunity and she has seized it with considerable warmth and flair. The big casting missteps are Mario Cantone and Scott Foley who have been with the play all along. While Gidger has many of the play's funniest lines, Cantone seems bent on being another Mason Marzac (the financial adviser who falls madly in love with baseball in Take Me Out). But while O'Hare's Mason was hilarious, he stopped short of being distracting and annoyingly over the top. The same can't be said for Cantone who practically stamps his foot and demands "Look at me-- laugh--applaud " every time he enters the room. To Cantone's credit, he might come off better if director Evan Yionoulis, who usually has a good feel for Greenberg's work, had guided him to tone down the Big Shtick aspects of his performance. Scott Foley's problem is not that he hams it up but that he's simply not up to projecting the passion and ego his Denis McCleary calls for. With two competent performances, and two that are just plain wrong, Robert Sean Leonard has to do all the heavy lifting. I could think of any number of actors who could have given him the support he deserves. Reg Roger and Peter Frechette, who so memorably portrayed the Collyer brothers in The Dazzle, could each play either role -- bringing out the subtlety of the Gidger's humor and the dash and grandiosity of Denis (and perhaps alternate as Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly did in True West). The MTC production does have three other stars in this show to rival Robert Sean Leonard's work. They are the behind the scenes wizards, Christopher Barreca, Jane Greenwood and Donald Holder who are responsible for the authentic and striking set, costumes and lighting (the latter including a gorgeous violet sky!). The performance problems notwithstanding, it doesn't take a time-traveling gizmo to predict that the The Violet Hour, like Mr. Greenberg's other plays, deserves and will have a long life in theaters around the world. LINKS Take Me Out The Dazzle Three Days of Rain
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