#1
Posted: 9/1/05 at 10:22am
I finally got back to Piazza last night for viewing #4. As everyone knows, this is Kelli's vacation week and Aaron Lazar doesn't start until Friday. What was the point in seeing the show? Well, (a) I love it, (b) I love it, (c) I love it. And it's always interesting to see the understudies go on. When I got to the theatre, I had an even more pleasant surprise: Sarah Uriarte Berry was ALSO out and Laura Griffith was going on as Franca! After redhot's rave reviews of her performance, I was really excited to see her.
The show was amazing, as always. I just got back from Firenze about two weeks ago, so the second the orchestra started the overture and the leaves started blowing, I was in tears. Vicki was absolutely fierce, as always, and the audience was with her from the moment she walked out on-stage, all the way to the last note of Fable. I'm always left awestruck and wobbly kneed from her performance, and last night was no exception...especially Fable, my god she just fills the space with her presence and her energy. I'm getting goosebumps remembering it.
Buuuut, everyone wants to know about the understudies!
I'll start with Laura, because she was my favorite of the bunch. Her Franca was amazing! Her voice has a very beautiful quality to it, and her Joy You Feel was magnificent. She had the attutide down, the relationship with Giuseppe (though Sarah and Michael get down to a lot more necking, hee hee hee!), the accent. She really did an all around fabulous job, and I wouldn't mind seeing her again.
Jennifer Hughes as Clara. She played the role very quirky and more childishly than Kelli, so it was a little jarring at first, but David Burnham plays Fabrizio a lot younger, so it all worked very well. Her voice is pretty, albeit not as powerful as Kelli's (it seemed to me like she was even holding back a little), and she delivered wonderful renditions of The Beauty Is and The Light in the Piazza. Her Clara's Interlude was particularly amazing because there was such pronounced anguish there--it was heartbreaking.
David Burnham. David Burnham is a comic genius. Lines that never got laughs with Matt got laughs with David, and his delivery is excellent. As I said, he plays the role a lot younger, and that made me notice some things that I'd never seen when Matt was Fabrizio, although it could be because I was watching something else at the time: Patti Cohenour doted on David a lot. She would come over, take his face in her hands, see that he was all right. It was clear he was her bravo ragazzo. His voice doesn't have the clarity or richness of Matt's, but he's so fearless with it that it's thrilling to hear him sing Il Mondo and cry out those "CLARAAAAA"s. When he and Jennifer sang Say It Somehow together, their voices blended so beautifully. Aiutami was a problem, though, because he worked himself into such a state before he came out on-stage that he could barely sing! It was an amazingly realistic bit of acting, but the song is written for five voices for a reason!
The cast handled these huge changes expertly. I hear you all saying 'It's not that astounding, they ARE performers, you know,' but having a new daughter, or a new family where the Naccarellis are concerned, can really throw someone, and the regulars were able to easily adapt so that if you'd never seen the show and didn't check your playbill beforehand, you wouldn't know that you weren't seeing the full cast.
And speaking of the regulars, they were top notch, as always. Michael Berresse was a riot, Patti Cohenour was amazing. It was probably my last time seeing Marc Harelik as Signor Naccarelli, and I can't imagine Chris Sarandon being able to top this guy!
Anyway, sorry for the length of this! But I thought that the...well, we don't have an official name yet so for now I'll just say Piazza fans, would be interested.
The show was amazing, as always. I just got back from Firenze about two weeks ago, so the second the orchestra started the overture and the leaves started blowing, I was in tears. Vicki was absolutely fierce, as always, and the audience was with her from the moment she walked out on-stage, all the way to the last note of Fable. I'm always left awestruck and wobbly kneed from her performance, and last night was no exception...especially Fable, my god she just fills the space with her presence and her energy. I'm getting goosebumps remembering it.
Buuuut, everyone wants to know about the understudies!
I'll start with Laura, because she was my favorite of the bunch. Her Franca was amazing! Her voice has a very beautiful quality to it, and her Joy You Feel was magnificent. She had the attutide down, the relationship with Giuseppe (though Sarah and Michael get down to a lot more necking, hee hee hee!), the accent. She really did an all around fabulous job, and I wouldn't mind seeing her again.
Jennifer Hughes as Clara. She played the role very quirky and more childishly than Kelli, so it was a little jarring at first, but David Burnham plays Fabrizio a lot younger, so it all worked very well. Her voice is pretty, albeit not as powerful as Kelli's (it seemed to me like she was even holding back a little), and she delivered wonderful renditions of The Beauty Is and The Light in the Piazza. Her Clara's Interlude was particularly amazing because there was such pronounced anguish there--it was heartbreaking.
David Burnham. David Burnham is a comic genius. Lines that never got laughs with Matt got laughs with David, and his delivery is excellent. As I said, he plays the role a lot younger, and that made me notice some things that I'd never seen when Matt was Fabrizio, although it could be because I was watching something else at the time: Patti Cohenour doted on David a lot. She would come over, take his face in her hands, see that he was all right. It was clear he was her bravo ragazzo. His voice doesn't have the clarity or richness of Matt's, but he's so fearless with it that it's thrilling to hear him sing Il Mondo and cry out those "CLARAAAAA"s. When he and Jennifer sang Say It Somehow together, their voices blended so beautifully. Aiutami was a problem, though, because he worked himself into such a state before he came out on-stage that he could barely sing! It was an amazingly realistic bit of acting, but the song is written for five voices for a reason!
The cast handled these huge changes expertly. I hear you all saying 'It's not that astounding, they ARE performers, you know,' but having a new daughter, or a new family where the Naccarellis are concerned, can really throw someone, and the regulars were able to easily adapt so that if you'd never seen the show and didn't check your playbill beforehand, you wouldn't know that you weren't seeing the full cast.
And speaking of the regulars, they were top notch, as always. Michael Berresse was a riot, Patti Cohenour was amazing. It was probably my last time seeing Marc Harelik as Signor Naccarelli, and I can't imagine Chris Sarandon being able to top this guy!
Anyway, sorry for the length of this! But I thought that the...well, we don't have an official name yet so for now I'll just say Piazza fans, would be interested.
"Peace! The charm's wound up."
--Macbeth
