Last Call: Violet

The perfect theatrical storm’s a seamless combination of a great production of a great play or musical. The audience goes to unforeseen places and becomes so attuned, as T. S. Eliot wrote, that they “are the music while the music lasts.” They leave spent, but also refreshed, lighter, more alive.

The Rep’s Violet needs a better book. It’s got a catchy idea: young, scarred Violet travels by bus to Oklahoma, where a TV evangelist, she’s convinced, can restore her face. She learns the meaning of real beauty. But the story’s jumpy, especially the first third, And, like Cygnet’s recent Dogfight (also with a vague connection to the 1960s and early Vietnam) the outcome’s inevitable, rather than startling. Love’ll find a way, dag nabbit!

What’s exceptional are the Rep’s performances. These include cameos with more than one side. By definition, a cameo appearance is a quickie: walk on, set a trait or two, do your job. But these cameos are multi-dimensional. Just when you think you’ve got the quick summation, the actor adds a different rinse.

Looking back, I can almost see Jason Heil firing up as he waits in the wings to go on as the televangelist and PREACH THE WORD. He’s flaming-stagey, sure, but unlike the stereotype, he may actually believe — even acknowledge the fragile nature of his gift.

And Melinda Gilb, the performer with a thousand faces, knocks the place loopy as the old Hotel Hooker, whose beauty and clientele are in decline. The song she sings, “Anyone Would Do” comes in pieces, like her. It’s at once funny and deeply, deeply felt.

Jason Maddy plays Violet’s guilt-wracked father (responsible for his daughter’s scar) with zone-eyed intensity. In effect, he’s as trapped as Violet. And finds a great, exhaling release with “That’s What I Could Do.”

The leads — Hannah Corrigan (Violet), Rhett George (Flick), and Jacob Caltrider (Monty) – carry the show, even the rocky opening that flits here and there (and shows signs of injudicious cutting). Each has a major number and does it justice, especially Harrigan’s lyrical “On My Way” and George’s mountaneous “Let It Sing.”

Most musicals have an Eleven O’Clock Number: a big show-stopper performed late in the second act. The tradition started when Broadway musicals began at 8:30 p.m. Audiences needed a pick-me-up, around eleven, to revive energies for the ending.

Some famous ones: “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” from Guys and Dolls and “Memory,” from Cats. Violet’s takes place in the Tulsa church during a choir rehearsal. It only relates to the story tangentially at best, since a character sings it who hasn’t appeared up to now.

That said, the gospel number “Raise Me Up,” belted by spirit-infused Tanika Baptiste, fulfills the Eleven O’Clock function like few others.

Oh, does it ever!