By STU CLAMPITT
news@readthereporter.com
Appearance versus reality and how we let ourselves be defined through the eyes of others is taking center stage in the Carmel Community Players (CCP) production of Violet, a musical coming to The Switch Theatre, 10029 E. 126th St., Suite D, Fishers, March 1 to 10.
The Reporter spoke with CCP Director Kathleen Horrigan about the play, its lessons, and why she wanted to bring this story to local audiences.
People made fun of her in the town. Her peers made fun of her growing up. In the play, Violet is on a mission to get the scar healed by a televangelist she saw heal people on television. She believes he will heal her, and she’ll finally become beautiful.
Horrigan told The Reporter she wanted to direct this play both because of the story itself and because of a local connection.
“Ben Davis is a Broadway actor,” Horrigan said. “I performed with him way back in the ‘90s at Civic Theatre, and he was in the Broadway cast for Violet. I kind of picked up on it because I was as a friend of Ben. And I was thrilled to be able to try to bring the story [to Hamilton County] because it’s very different. It’s like there’s so many places that Violet visits along the way and so everything is kind of imagined, even her scar.”
Photo by Rob Slaven / IndyGhostLight.com
Audiences will not see Violet’s scar, except in the reactions of other characters. Likewise, most of the scenery is representational rather staged.
“We have projections that say where they are because they’re on the bus and you couldn’t bring a bus onto a stage,” Horrigan said. “There are four different bus rides that she goes on, so a lot of it is representational.”
This play has two people playing Violet, one in the present and one in flashback. The present, in this story, is 1964.
“The Vietnam War is up and running,” Horrigan said. “There’s a Black soldier and a White soldier that she meets on the bus. And so the White soldier is a little bit younger and cocky and has a physical attraction to her after a night of drinking. But the Black soldier has his heart for her.”
Photo by Rob Slaven / IndyGhostLight.com
Violet struggles through this journey across the country with her own wounded spirit and how she sees herself in the reactions of others to her physical scar, which has become the scar in her soul.
“It’s about the internal scars,” Horrigan said. “I look at it like the soldiers that have that come back after they have been burned or have lost a limb. It’s like what they’re experiencing inwardly while they feel like they are not who they used to be. And that’s kind of her journey as well. She still feels like the scar is affecting her soul. The whole journey is inward. She is scarred inside as well as outwardly.”
You can journey with Violet through the musical story of her question for healing March 1 to 10 at The Switch Theatre, 10029 E. 126th St., Suite D, Fishers. Go to carmelplayers.org/tickets or call (317) 815-9387 for tickets.
Note: Because of the time period this play is set in and the racial tensions of that era, there may be one racial epithet in this play. Horrigan is appealing to the publishing company for permission to change that one word in the script, but at press time she had not yet received such permission.