Reviews 2010
Reviews 2010
✭✭✭✭✩
written by Adam Guettel, directed by Robert McQueen,
Acting Up Stage Theatre, Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto
February 1-21, 2010
We owe a great debt of thanks to Acting Up Stage for bringing Toronto the Canadian premiere of The Light in the Piazza. With so many new musicals based on movies or television series or fashioned around the back catalogues of pop groups, one could easily believe that musicals now are more concerned with merchandizing than with exploring the human condition. Fortunately, for the art form and those who love it, there are composers like Adam Guettel crazy enough to believe a musical can be work of art. That’s exactly what Piazza is, a lush, neo-romantic creation that pushes the boundaries of what music theatre can be.
The story is gripping on its own. In 1953 Margaret (Patty Jamieson), a wealthy American woman, and her unusually innocent daughter Clara (Jacquelyn French) are touring Italy, when in Florence Clara and a local boy Fabrizio (Jeff Lillico) fall in love. With matters complicated by the language barrier (much of the dialogue and some of the songs are in untranslated Italian), the over-protective Margaret has to decide whether Clara and Fabrizio’s love is real and whether to reveal a secret about Clara that could jeopardize Clara’s happiness. As the couple appear headed for marriage, Margaret's dilemma grows in urgency and ethical weight.
Guettel’s score, in its 2008 version for only three strings, piano and harp, is simply gorgeous. It rejects pop and rock in favour of the dense harmonies and the ebb and flow of the string quintets of Gabriel Fauré. One beautiful song follows the next, complex both in structure and mood. Margaret as narrator is the central figure and Jamieson gives a wonderfully nuanced delineation of the conflicting emotions her daughter’s love arouses. French, who has a voice that really blossoms as it grows louder, is ideally cast as Clara. It’s such a pleasure to hear Lillico in a singing role again one wonders why he doesn’t take them on more often. Acting mostly in Italian he conveys all the joy and anguish of Fabrizio’s love. Juan Chioran and Christina Gordon are also excellent as Fabrizio’s parents. Robert McQueen’s fluid direction allows tension to build naturally. The only flaw in the otherwise sensitive conducting of Jonathan Munro is allowing the musicians too often to overpower the unmic’d singers. Nevertheless, if you want to see the contemporary American musical at its best, you must visit this Piazza.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-02-05.
Photo: Jeff Lillico and Jacquelyn French. ©Joanna McDermott.
2010-02-05
The Light in the Piazza