Light in the Piazza Reviews- Page 8

[kyle.]

Posted: 4/23/05 at 12:15pm

they have $20 student tickets, but you have to sign up for their studentix program online and pay for the ticket with a credit card. it is kind of cool though because you are able to pick where you sit. http://www.lct.org/studentix/

you can also become a member of tdf.org which costs $25 to join, but you get discounts on a ton of shows once you are a member. the member price for my piazza ticket was around $30.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 3:48pm

Someone asked several pages ago for John Simon's review. The King of the Bitter Old Curmudgeons (when is he retiring, by the way?) is very positive:

"It is hard to say whether The Light in the Piazza is a tentative but significant step forward for the endangered American musical or a noble failure. Either way, it is head and shoulders above its cohort (Dessa Rose, Spamalot, and that lot), which, admittedly, isn’t saying all that much. What can be said with total assurance is that anyone who cares about the rather uncertain future of this truly American genre should—must—see the show, think and worry about it, and reach his or her own conclusions.
_______________________________________________________________

Craig Lucas’s book seems perfectly adequate to me, but the emphasis must be on Adam Guettel’s music and lyrics. Those lyrics, I’m afraid, are a bit self-consciously poeticizing, a trifle arcanely oblique. But the music, though fluctuating between the Sondheimesque and offbeat but still Broadwayish and the art-songlike and even operatic, is steadily absorbing, even if only intermittently melodious. One duet, “Let’s Walk,” is an unqualified hit, but the rest, without fully cohering, is also arresting. It is—to offer a classical parallel—as if a world weaned on Brahms were suddenly confronted with Schoenberg. Ted Sperling and Guettel’s jaunty orchestrations add to the slightly disorienting but wholly fascinating harmonies and instrumentation. Bartlett Sher’s direction, making imaginative and compelling use of stage space, creates cinematically panoramic fluidity.


The entire cast acts, sings, coexists with uniform ensemble efficiency. Kelli O’Hara may lack Clara’s ambiguous charisma and drop-dead looks, but she sings well and comports herself convincingly. Victoria Clark’s Margaret is, quite simply, superb; if not exactly Rossano Brazzi, Mark Harelik is a resourceful and fascinating Signor Naccarelli. Matthew Morrison is a fine-looking and ingenuous Fabrizio, Michael Berresse a suitably caddish yet likable Giuseppe, Sarah Uriarte Berry a perky and touching Franca, Patti Cohenour an understatedly winning Signora, and Beau Gravitte a sympathetically unsympathetic Roy. The use of much unsurtitled Italian, and even a goodly bit of ecclesiastic Latin, may be a mite excessive, but it, too, is original and daring, like everything else that lights up this Light in the Piazza."


http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/arts/theater/reviews/11817/index.html

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 3:52pm

John Simon retire? He's going to die at the theatre. His last words will be "Viz is crap!" as he breathes his final breath.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:06pm

Any chance we could borrow the big cart from SPAMALOT and just go through the aisles during critics' previews requesting "Bring Out Your Dead! Bring Out Your Dead!" Maybe we could finally get rid of Simon, Barnes, Kissell, et al that way.....

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:09pm

Well, Barnes will be napping, so you can get him easy. But I don't think Simon will go down without a fight.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:10pm

I swear, I still don't get all the hype over Clark. She was fine in the show, but neither her nor the part itself was anything to write home about in my opinion.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:15pm

Agreed, Matt.

Aw, be nice! I really like John Simon.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:20pm

John Simon is my favorite critic.

[Plum]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:22pm

Be nice? Like Simon is nice? Not that it's a critic's job to be nice, but that's not our job, either. And some of his attitudes just drive me up the wall.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:26pm

Well, some performers don't need the sympathy engendered by a broken foot or a teddy bear to turn in a well-rounded performance.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:28pm

Did I ever say they did?

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:30pm

Wow, that was unnecessarily bitchy...

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:34pm

Not really, but the matter has been dragged into the ground. Clearly, some people aren't going for her and some are.
It's a beautifully-done performance, well-written and well-performed.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:35pm

Clearly someone thinks their opinion is more valid than others. A review was posted and I commented on it. Hence, the nature of the message board here.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:39pm

It's just pretty funny how certain people are allowed to be bitchy in defense of their own preferences.

My opinion is as valid as the next guy's. Maybe more sometimes, maybe less. Here, I'd say it's at least as valid.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:40pm

Yeah it's a real laugh riot, Eric.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:46pm

Sure is.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:47pm

Pathetic.

Anyways, what were we talking about?

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:51pm

We could certainly talk about pathetic things if you like.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:51pm

I don't understand...

[Matt_G]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:52pm

Neither do I, Munk.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:53pm

I believe we were talking about the performance of Victoria Clark in "The Light in the Piazza." It's not so hard to keep up.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 4:54pm

Anyways.....

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 5:22pm

Since I'm apparently being bitchy (not that that's unheard of around here), I will post what I said earlier a bit more eloquently.

The reason I believe Victoria Clark is doing a miraculous feat onstage at the Beaumont is because she is doing so simply in the confines of a remarkably-written, subtle character.
No big, flying cars. No cherry pickers to lift her high into the air. No funny accent and silly stage antics. No personal tragedy to overcome and put the audience in her hands preemptively.
She's simply going onstage every night, acting the hell out of a part and singing it to the roof. And that is far more remarkable than any other performance I've seen this year (minus, perhaps, Cherry Jones and Billy Crudup).

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 4/25/05 at 5:27pm

It's clear what you're saying - I don't think it needed explanation. I just didn't care for her. I thought she was good, but I found her performance inconsistant. Her accent wavered, and she seemed confused. I don't think her part is very well written - the whole time I was sitting there I kept saying "THIS is what they're all talking about?"

The reason I'm cheering for Christina Applegate has nothing to do with her injury - I think she's fantastic. Last yea, I was rooting for Tonya Pinkins, who gave the true performance you are describing above. I think the point you are trying to make is nonexistant. No one said Idina Menzel was good because she "flew." No performer in CHITTY is being called brilliant because of a flying car. The flying car does not enhance one performance. It's irrelevant.

When it comes down to it, I prefer Sutton Foster and Christina Applegate anyday over Clark. She was fine, but I found her flat and lacking. And trust me, that's very unlike me.