Friday April 27, 2007 SGN.org |
 |
Volume 35 Issue 17 |
 |
|
Saturday, Sep 06, 2008
|
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
| |||||||||
The Light in the Piazza has a shimmering homecoming at the Paramount |
||
.jpg) |
||
| The Light in the Piazza has a shimmering homecoming at the Paramount | ||
| by E. Joyce Glasgow -
SGN A&E Writer The Light in the Piazza April 17th-29th Paramount The Light in the Piazza is having a shimmering and triumphant homecoming to Seattle at the Paramount Theater, through April 29th. The musical had its beginnings at the Intiman Theatre in 2003 and went on to win six Tony Awards in New York in 2005. This intimate chamber musical, previously performed in the cozier atmosphere of the Intiman and on the audience immediate thrust stage of the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, in Lincoln Center, translated to the much larger, more impersonal, proscenium configured Paramount with surprising ease. For an audience member who hasn't seen this play in a smaller venue, I think that the touring company in the larger houses is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the luscious music, fascinating story and great performances that this piece has to offer and I would recommend seeing it in any context. I do have to admit that the original production at the Intiman is still my favorite. It was simple, spare and very personal. Its small scale allowed for a great deal of subtlety and I find subtlety a rare quality in a competitive world where being louder and bigger seems to be the norm. Adam Guettel's score is highly refined and an intimate and subtle production makes a sublime match. It was beautiful to watch and hear the small, five piece chamber group, in silhouette, playing on the stage behind the actors. When it was adapted for the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in N.Y.C. it still maintained a lot of intimacy due to the thrust stage configuration, but we could no longer see the musicians, as they were placed in the orchestra pit below. The musicians' numbers swelled from five to fifteen, allowing for more full and complex orchestrations and the music sounded magnificent! If you have a chance to hear the CD, this is the production that was recorded, with the original lead, Victoria Clark, who played the mother in the Seattle Intiman production and in N.Y.C. and won a Tony Award for her stunning and poignant interpretation of Margaret Johnson. This production also introduced the audience to more elaborate sets, though the beauty of this show in general is that the stage remains very open, allowing for gorgeous use of dramatic lighting (by Christopher Akerlind), to reveal the atmosphere of Florence, with carefully selected set pieces (by Michael Yeargan), suggesting the richness, history, textures and sensuality of the Italian culture. An ancient statue here, a flower vending stand there, an outdoor café, several Renaissance paintings, a chandelier, delicate wine glasses and gold brocade chairs. The experience is heightened by the lovely use of the Italian language, naturalistically flowing with English, in a way that allows the audience to understand everything that's going on, even if they don't speak Italian. The 1950's style clothing (by Catherine Zuber), has been impeccably designed, including fabulous hats. It is the Beaumont version which has been adapted for touring to larger theaters, like the Paramount, around the country and soon, to foreign countries. The creators, Adam Guettel (composer/lyricist/orchestrations), Bartlett Sher (director), and Craig Lucas (book) have managed to still maintain much of the intimacy and poignancy, with a lot of credit going to the great cast, led by Christine Andreas as Margaret, Katie Rose Clarke, as starry-eyed daughter, Clara, David Burnham, as romantic Fabrizio and a very talented group of supporting actors, including Seattle's own, John Procaccino (as Roy Johnson). The fifteen piece orchestra has the harp at its core, with violins, cello, guitar, piano, celesta, bass, clarinet, English horn, oboe, bassoon, contra bassoon and percussion. Lovely, artistic, impulsive, honest and childlike, Clara has an achingly delirious connection with the dashing, young, passionate, open and thoroughly love-struck Fabrizio Naccarelli, enhanced by the romance and beauty of their surroundings in Florence, where Fabrizio lives with his elegant, fashionable and emotional, merchant family, who own a stylish men's tie shop by the Arno River. Unlike the forthright Fabrizio, his older brother, Giuseppe (Jonathan Hammond), is a cad, cheating blatantly on his fiery wife, Franca (Wendi Bergamini). Suave patriarch, Signor Naccarelli (David Ledingham), has a resigned and workable relationship with his wife (Diana DiMarzio) and is not only the one to look to, ultimately, to decide the fate of the two young lovers, but also develops a quiet attraction and kinship with Margaret, which builds throughout the play. The mystery surrounding Clara unfolds with bittersweet clues which slowly bring us to realize that she is a "special child", as her mother tries to explain to Fabrizio. Looking into his smiling and anticipating gaze, there is a moment of silence and she cannot bring herself to tell him the story of Clara's accident. She does tell the audience of Clara's 12th birthday party, when they rented a pony and in the moment that Margaret turned away to answer the phone, the pony kicked Clara in the side of her head, leaving her to mature physically into womanhood, but to be arrested in time, mentally and emotionally as a twelve-year-old. Margaret sings with agonizing regret and hindsight (and allusions to the Renaissance art she has been studying on her trip), a heart-wrenching wish to have been able to have one moment back so that things could have been different: "She fell, It seemed to take forever for her to fall, You know in those moments, When momentous things happen, So slowly, I reach, Like these paintings in the old tradition, There's a figure reaching out in them, like so, And to me it is the most familiar tableau, I know& So much wanting something, So much reaching for it, So much wishing just to have one moment back, So much being patient, So much blind acceptance, I know, No, I don't know& A mother here in Italy, A mother here alone, I thought if I had a child, I would take such care of her, So much reaching for it, So much holding breath and keeping fingers crossed, Watching over my, My little lost, Clara&If I could, Then I would paint it over, I would be there and I wouldn't turn away, If I only had a chance to not turn away". I have a problem with amplification, sometimes feeling that is a barrier between me and the performer and it can feel artificial. However in a large theater there are usually no other options, so this production is amplified. Most of the time, the aural values were pretty balanced but I think it is probably difficult to keep the sound perfect at all times. Occasionally it was difficult to hear the orchestra's dramatic swells and gentle, sweet nuances of the strings, harp, guitar and winds and the singers had moments of intensity in their singing when their microphones' volumes made them sound a little jarring. Christine Andreas played the role of Margaret with complexity and beautiful singing. Margaret is faced with roiling and conflicting emotions; about her daughter Clara's accident and condition, fear of the unknown future for Clara and her sudden, blossoming love with a potential Florentine husband, the impetuous Fabrizio and her own internal discoveries and realizations about her love or lack of love, at mid-life, with her husband, Roy, who is just a long-distance voice on the phone, across the Atlantic, back in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In her song "Dividing Day", (supported, with the right mood, by the bassoon), she questions their love and history together with doubt: "So when, when was this day, Was it on the church step, Suddenly you're out of love, Does it go creeping slowly, When was your dividing day& I can see the winter in your eyes now, Telling me, "Margaret, We did it, You curtsied, I bowed, We are together, But no more love, No more love allowed", When was dividing day, Was it on the church step, Did it happen right away, Were you lying next to me, Hiding what you couldn't say, How could I have guessed, Was my cheek upon your chest, An ocean away&" While she is fearful of Clara being able to live her life with some sort of normalcy as a grown, married young woman and to make it more complicated, in Italy, she also sees the brightness of Clara's innocent and passionate dream for happiness with Fabrizio and dares to let go of her with faith and release, inspiring a catharsis for Margaret. In her final song, "Fable", she expresses her mixed emotions for both Clara and herself, through Adam Guettel's brilliant and poetic lyrics: "You can look in the forest, For a secret field, For a golden arrow, For a prince to appear, For a fable of love that will last forever&You can look in the ruins, For a wishing well, For a magic apple, For a charioteer, For a fable of love that will carry you&To a moon on a hill, to a hidden stream, A lagoon and a red horizon dream, Silhouette set away from time forever, To a valley beyond the setting sun, Where waters shine and horses run, Where there's a man who looks for you&But while you look you are changing, turning, You're a well of wishes, You're a fallen apple, No! No! Love's a fake, Love's a fable&Just a painting on a ceiling, Just a children's fairy tale, Still you have to look, And look and look and look and look, And look and look and look and look&For the eyes on a bridge in a pouring rain, Not the eyes, but the part you can't explain, For the arms you could fall into forever, For the joy that you thought you'd never know, For, here at last, Away you go, To a man who looks for you&If you find in the world, In the wide wide world, That someone sees, That someone knows you, Love! Love! Love, if you can, oh my Clara, Love if you can and be loved, May it last forever, Clara, The light in the piazza". The Light in the Piazza is filled with overwhelmingly heart-opening, shimmering, romantic and stunningly gorgeous music that bridges the melodic beauty and sensibility, reminiscent of the 20th century, golden age of Rogers and Hammerstein Broadway musicals, with the more recent musical influences of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim (Guettel's mentor) and the genius, heightened intensity, originality and freshness of Adam Guettel's very 21st century music and lyrics. I find that his soaring, expansive, crescendoing, yearning and sublime melodies move me to tears whenever I listen to this fantastically beautiful, magical and rich music! For more information on The Light in the Piazza visit: www.intiman.org. |
||
.jpg) |
||
 |
||
International Readers read the SGN in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish |
|
 post your own information on Seattle Gay Blog |
|
|
|
Alison A Benefit for |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2007