It’s hard to imagine Sutton Foster as anything but an irrepressible cheerleader. She always plays the perky woman who wins the hero’s affections, all the while, singing and dancing and even doing cartwheels. (The Drowsy Chaperone, Anything Goes, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Shrek.) She’s won the hearts of her audiences along with two Tony Awards.
The role of Violet in the revival of Jeanine Tesori’s musical Violet is a departure for the talented Ms. Foster. Violet is a dark character whose whole life has been scarred (literally) by an accident. As a child, she was disfigured when her father was chopping wood and the ax blade flew off. As with the play, The Elephant Man, the audience doesn’t see the character’s scar, only the reaction of people who encounter her. Foster wears no special make-up; in fact, she wears no makeup at all.
Years later, she leaves her childhood home to find a TV preacher who will perform a miracle and fix her face. (She sings a wistful, poignant song about the features she wants from famous movie actresses, reminding the audience that the story is set in the 1960s.) Violet tells the tale of her journey and the two soldiers, one black and one white, whom she meets on the bus traveling from Spruce Pine, NC to Tulsa, OK.