Light in the Piazza Reviews- Page 5

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 9:42am

I love what you said about the Post in general Margo, its so true it really makes sense they would have a theatre critic who makes up whatever he wants the story to be as well.
I'm really happy that TLITP is getting such positive reviews, it wasn't my favorite show but this has to be good for them. I am really glad Clark is getting raves, I'd like to see her pick up the Tony.
I absolutely loved the score, it was by far my favorite part. (Kind of nice the Post hated it so I can continue my streak of just thinking the oposite of whatever that rag prints)

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 10:14am

These reviews are pretty much what I expected. I love the love for Clark! Having only heard the score once I was haunted by it for sometime and long to hear it again. I don't think it can or should be judged on one hearing. Audiences have become lazy and would rather hear easy "songs" and not have to think about things such as leitmotiv. I would never buy the cast album for some jukebox musical but can't wait to own this CD.

But something Mistress said disturbed me. In reference to VC she said:

sure the reviews can definitely give her a leg up, but why give it to someone when the audience wont be able to go see her, if the show does close on schedule, a week after the awards ...

She should win the award if she deserves it, regardless if the show is closing soon or even if it has closed already. The award is supposed to be for the outstanding performance of the season, not for the production that most people will likely see. I am sure that is not what you really meant, or at least I hope not.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 10:17am

Sueleen - I think Mistress was talking from the perspective of what voters might be thinking - which she definitely doesn't agree with - I think.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 10:21am

I am sure you are right, D, but unfortunately, I am sure a lot of people feel this way.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 10:23am

"The award is supposed to be for the outstanding performance of the season, not for the production that most people will likely see."

While I completely agree with this, as we all know, it doesn't always work that way.

Updated On: 4/19/05 at 10:23 AM

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 10:29am

Sadly, Matt's very right.

Personally, I think a lot of the reason Tonya didn't win last year's award was because the voters didn't expect CAROLINE to stick around but new WICKED would.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 11:08am

i was saying that it will be going through the minds of the voters which is why ive said more than once that i think an extension would be the best thing for them to do. it shouldnt matter (likewise i dont think being previously nominated should matter, but it seems like that can influence too) but i have a feeling it will cross peoples minds. the tonys are like a 3 hr advertisement for broadway and it would seem the most self serving to reward the shows people can still go see.

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 11:12am

Wow, all the love for Piazza on this thread. I gotta say, I am not surprised by the complete MIXEDness of the reviews. I still think the ONLY award this show will win will be for it's beautiful set.

But I have to agree with Clive Barnes, I see where he is coming from and completely agree. Those of you who are dissmissing him as an old washed up has been are obviously fans of the show, I respect his opinion of this show quite a bit.

After all is said and done, I don't look for an extention notice anytime soon.

and PS - SUTTON STILL DESERVES THE TONY!

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 11:17am

LaCage-That is really not accurate for me at least. I was not all that fond of the show, but the best part was the music. There were other quite legitimate areas to critique.
I also found Margo's description of the way the man writes to be revealing.
It really seems "the Sutton already has a Tony and her show is not even nearly as well recieved" answer is in order for that last comment. I don't necessarily agree with that assesment but it will certainly play a role in the votes.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 11:21am

Just catching up...

"Movin Out's orchestration award was more about the Tonys falling over themselves to find an excuse to honor a mega-celebrity like Billy Joel (and making sure he'd have an excuse to be on the national telecast) than it had anything to do with merit on any level."

While I was surprised with this award, and I agree with Margo to some degree, I do think the fact that Movin' Out's orchestrations were structured for a ballet also played heavily in its win. Unlike All Shook Up, Movin' Out had no dialogue and the structure of the "score" as well as the orchestrations of the previously existing material doubled as the book for the show, which is hard to ignore. It was like a sung-through score or previously existing material, which could only be honored through the category of orchestrations. Therefore, I do think it deserved the award.

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 11:44am

I would bet more Tony Voters have had the time to appriciate and see Fosters amazing work, and because of the crazy and very busy season will not all get a chance to witness Clark's good performance.

Personally, yes I think Sutton was much better than Victoria and her lopsided accent. But since this post is about LITP, I will leave it at that.
Updated On: 4/19/05 at 11:44 AM

[leomaxfrank]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 12:11pm

LaCage - "much better than Clark", I'm assuming you mean.

Just read the whole thread. I am glad it's getting some nice write-ups. Any more reviews?

[Sasha3]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 1:26pm

I think LaCage's real name is Hunter.

[leomaxfrank]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 1:34pm

ha NICE

[leomaxfrank]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 2:26pm

Did Simon post his review yet?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 2:53pm

Simon's review in New York Mag will be out Monday, I presume.

Here's a nice writeup from the Hartford Courant:

"Italy boasts a living history of great architecture, superb art and sublime music, and nowhere is its heritage more brilliantly displayed than in Florence, or Firenze.

Thanks in part to the atmospheric arched settings by Michael Yeargan, the glory of Italy comes alive in "The Light in the Piazza," an ambitious and affecting blending of bel canto and musical theater by Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas.

Bartlett Sher's finely shaded, precise and feeling production, which opened Monday night at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, extends the efforts of Lincoln Center Theater to perpetuate the American musical. The new piece, tested and refined in Seattle and Chicago, places near the top of the parade of musicals by Jason Robert Brown, William Finn, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, and Michael John LaChiusa.

As is the custom under the aegis of Bernard Gersten and André Bishop, "The Light in the Piazza" is wonderfully produced, with costumes by Catherine Zuber that express the rich, bell-skirted femininity of the '50s. The show also boasts unusually beautiful and expressive voices, those of Victoria Clark, Kelli O'Hara, Sarah Uriarte Berry and Patti Cohenour, as well as young Matthew Morrison as a smitten Florentine.
_______________________________________________________________

"Yet the collaboration between Guettel ("Floyd Collins") and the veteran Lucas ("Singing Forest," recently at Long Wharf Theatre) blends romanticism with the gothic fears surrounding the somehow special Clara. The musical Italian language alternates with English, as Fabrizio sings "Il Mondo Era Vuoto" ("The World Will Be Empty") and waltzes Clara through a "Passeggiata" or a walk. The music, though it sometimes echoes Stephen Sondheim in its difficulty, sings with a melodic uplift too. Guettel's lyrics are simple, rarely tricky, but poetic, as Clark's Margaret sings of her husband, "I can see the winter in your eyes."

Clark has the final word and carries through the evening with charm, grace and finely modulated singing. O'Hara sings with power and lightness.

It is gratifying, too, that Sher, the gifted former associate artistic director of Hartford Stage, is reaching Broadway, on the same stage recently occupied by Mark Lamos' revival of "The Rivals." In this fine-grained, amusing and poignant look at innocents abroad, a new Tony contender arises, though it will probably be no match for the big and boisterous British burlesque known as "Monty Python's Spamalot."

http://www.ctnow.com/stage/reviews/hce-lightpiazzarev.artapr19,0,2303460.story?coll=hce-headlines-theaterreviews

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 3:00pm

And a very positive review from the New York Sun:

" "It’s a new old world to me,” sing mother and daughter. “It’s a new old world and / We are here.” The ladies refer to Florence, where they have traveled for a holiday. They might also be talking about “The Light in the Piazza,” which opened last night at Lincoln Center.

The musical is new because it’s a first-time collaboration between librettist Craig Lucas and composerlyricist Adam Guettel, who showed young promise with “Floyd Collins” nine years ago. It’s old because they have based their show on Elizabeth Spencer’s popular 1959 novella about Clara, an American girl who falls in love with an Italian boy, and her mother, Margaret, who has reasons for keeping the two apart. It’s “new old” because that’s the kind of fight Mr. Guettel and Mr. Lucas are waging.

That the battle has been fought and won countless times over the last century makes no difference; the need to fight it persists. Like Rodgers and Hammerstein, Kern and Sondheim, Mr. Guettel and Mr. Lucas share the implicit belief that the flimsy musical theater that surrounds them is not all the musical theater there is — that sincere artists can extract from the form’s motley amalgamation of opera, operetta, revue, and vaudeville not just a diverting evening, but also an experience of emotional weight and musical beauty. Audiences won’t leave their show with anything like the sense of revelation that greeted, say, “Show Boat.” But at a time when musical theater is dominated by overblown spoofs, runaway irony, and soul-crushing quasi-pop, the original and winning “Piazza” is welcome not least because it proves that Broadway isn’t entirely the province of licensing agents and Frank Wildhorn. Not yet, anyway.

For sheer loveliness, the pleasure imparted to eyes and ears, no show in town can touch what Mr. Guettel, Mr. Lucas, and director Bartlett Sher have managed here. Scenic designer Michael Yeargan reproduces Florence at what appears to be full scale. The Beaumont stage is about the size of a city block, and his sets use every cubic foot of it."
_______________________________________________________

"If “Piazza” doesn’t ultimately have the emotional payoff promised by its best moments, those moments still compel. They tend to feature Mark Harelik, sensational as Signor Naccarelli, and Victoria Clark, dazzling as Margaret. He gives the paterfamilias a debonair gravity, funny and involving without strain; she makes Margaret’s predicament thrillingly real, the deep center of the show. In narration, dialogue, and song alike, she conveys how Margaret is torn between loyalty to her husband, love for her daughter, and her own unhappy desires. Sometimes Ms. Clark is funny, mostly she’s moving, and every note sounds as if she was born to sing Adam Guettel’s songs. Here’s to more from both of them. "


NY Sun

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 3:50pm

I, for one, am glad to see the reception this show is getting. 4 or 5 years ago I was commenting on how Ragtime and Parade were being slighted by audiences and critics who were sick of the overblown, heavy-handed drama of the British imports and the shows that followed them. Being a fan of serious theater I looked forward to a renaissance. It took a few years, but Caroline or Change came along, and now Light in the Piazza is being treated similarly. I don't care if these shows sell a million tickets, win Best Musical Tony awards, or become household names. If they do well enough to generate a cast album and become licensable, I'm a happy man.

[GovernorSlaton]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 4:03pm

It got a rave in New Jersey's The Star-Ledger.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 4:05pm

Hey, Gov'na Have you seen Piazza yet? I can't remember.

[GovernorSlaton]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 4:12pm

Hey, D. Nope, I haven't seen it yet, but I have tickets in May; a lot of people have told me that I'll love it, so we'll see. Priest reviewed it in one of his threads, and said he couldn't get into it.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 4:13pm

Gov - I remember the review from Priest (well-written, as usual). I'll be curious to hear what you think after you see it.

[Testing1232]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 5:56pm

I am also surprised at the (mostly) positive reviews.

We were surrounded by people that were bored to tears when we saw it. I am glad that we saw it, but it didnt do much for us.

[MusicalDirector109]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 6:46pm

Victoria Clark had me from her first entrance. Her characterization and vocal ability is truly the best performance by an actress in a musical this season. The score is not for everyone, but as a musician, I appreciate the score because it is something that we don't hear that often on a Broadway stage. I really loved this show!! I think it will get a Best Musical nomination.

[Plum]

Posted: 4/19/05 at 7:02pm

His lyrics are fluent and touching, full of the love of living and the joys and pains of life. But the music misses some melodic quality, the kind that can catch in the mind and heart — the same quality that made his grandfather, and Sondheim, great.

Okay, regardless of whether he fell asleep during the show or not, does anyone else find it hysterically funny that Clive Barnes, basher of so many of Sondheim's original productions, is now extolling the "melodic" qualities of his music? Oy.
Updated On: 4/19/05 at 07:02 PM