The multiple mobilities of civil rights in Jeanine Tesori’s Violet and Caroline, or Change

Abstract

This article centres on Jeanine Tesori’s Violet (book and lyrics by Brian Crawley) and Caroline, or Change (book and lyrics by Tony Kushner), both of which are set in the American south during a crucial period in American history running between the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963 and the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both works musically capture the imaginative traditions of the American south through gospel, country, Motown, and blues in order to detail the complex negotiations of the titular female protagonists through challenges of isolation, entrapment and liberation in the months following Kennedy's assassination. This article argues that the promise and affordance of mobility within these musicals are rooted in an uncanny spiritual fervour expressed by Violet and Caroline, both of whom have defined a distinctive, and, as will be recognized by each musical’s conclusion, mistaken theology of personal devotion and faith that runs precisely counter to the liberating potentials in the world around them.