American Inventions

Which suggests the reasons for the piece‘s underlying charm: its beguiling mix of the hip with the sweet. Woodbury is so good, and her bursts of insight so subtle, she may well emerge as a latter-day Lily Tomlin, or even Ruth Draper. Indeed, the character of Violet, an octogenarian communist who hobbles about accompanied by a poodle named Balzac, shares the New England haughtiness that characterizes so many of Draper’s eccentrics. Violet is the focus of the second half (”Violet With Shades of Blue“), as she throws a birthday party for Balzac while indulging in a drinking binge after her friends have all bailed from their commitment to attend the festivities.

Violet was a kind of Greek chorus in The Heather Woodbury Report, and director Dudley Saunders remarks in the program how Violet was so popular and underused there that Woodbury brought her back in this more focused presentation. The result is a letdown with a revelation: Overexposure to Violet forces us to acknowledge that all Woodbury‘s characters are not really characters at all, but slivers of language and gesture that create the illusion of character. The potency of Woodbury’s performance novels lies -- contrary to appearance -- not in her characterizations, but in the way the shards of story combine into an American collage, with its juxtapositions and encounters among stoned teenagers, pimps and hookers, and stolid Midwestern families. Which, unfortunately for Violet, means that her hour of stage time feels excessive and self-consciously poignant, almost dripping in honey. Violet in a crowd and upstaged appears a richer creation than the solitary Violet talking on the phone or to her pooch, with all the time in the world.