The Light In The Piazza - SF 1st Preview- Page 5

[DramaQueen700]

Posted: 8/3/06 at 1:56pm

i never really understood the old man in the show. i always assumed that it wsa merely to show that not eveyrone in florence is 25 and sexy haha.

but when clara runs around before passegiatta, and says "how old are you?" i dont get the purpose, other than to show clara's mental impediment because shes obviously being rude, but doesnt believe she is.

[AshleyBrownFan123]

Posted: 8/3/06 at 2:55pm

Love the playbill.

[gittel]

Posted: 8/3/06 at 4:10pm

I think asking the old man how old he is has two purposes: it gives a glimpse at her mental/emotional shortcomings (even though it gets a laugh from the audience) and I think it foreshadows the issue of Clara's own age which is revealed later in the show.

Of course many audience members know this plot point ahead of time, but speaking for myself--as one who didn't think she was 26 or think there was such an age difference between Clara and Fabrizio--the reveal in Act II and its importance to the story played like a hit to the head. So, in retrospect, asking the old man his age was a nod of plot reveals to come.

[sidneybruhl]

Posted: 8/3/06 at 4:44pm

I really love this thread. Please keep the posts about "Piazza" in SF coming. I'm planning on seeing the show on its next stop in Cincinnati, Ohio. Having seen it in NYC with Victoria, David, and Katie, I'm anxious to see the tour.

[jimnysf]

Posted: 8/3/06 at 8:19pm

Here is an article from the San Jose Mercury News.

https://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/15187506.htm

A brilliant shine from `Light in the Piazza'
WINNER OF SIX TONY AWARDS NOW PLAYING IN S.F.
By Karen D'Souza
Mercury News
At first blush, ``The Light in the Piazza' may seem to be the ultimate retro musical theater experience.

Picture American tourists in the '50s smitten with the wonders of Tuscany. Think ladies in sun hats and petticoats swooning over Italian lotharios. Think fountains bubbling and frescoes beckoning. Think sun-dappled views of Florence. Think bosom-heaving romance. Um, actually, don't think. Just sigh.

But given the show's high-minded pedigree, looks may be deceiving. Don't be too quick to dismiss the musical as just another sappy Hollywood movie recycled onto the stage. ``Piazza' ran for over a year on Broadway, after all, picking up six Tony Awards before launching its national tour, which opened at San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre this week.

Indeed, in a Broadway universe dominated by familiar brands, from greatest-hits singalongs (``Mamma Mia!') to endless revivals (``A Chorus Line' cometh), a new musical with an inventive score shines like a light in the darkness. With a book by Craig Lucas (``Prelude to a Kiss') and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel (``Floyd Collins'), the show easily qualifies as a must-see for serious musical theater buffs (those who prefer ``Candide' to ``Cats').

Critics have praised the show's originality, hailing it as a beacon of promise on the all-too-often formulaic Great White Way. New York magazine said it ``sparks at least a hope for the future of the Broadway musical.' The New York Times recommended the show to ``hopeful theatergoers still looking for love in a Broadway musical.'

Bartlett Sher, who received a Tony nomination for his direction of ``Piazza,' agrees. ``You work all of your life to be able to take on one of those great tasks with all of your skills, and this was one of those moments.'

Of course, if ``The Wedding Singer' musical is your cup of kitsch, then ``Piazza' may not suit your pop-culture palate. While it's true that the musical is based on a film, it's one few theatergoers remember these days (for the record, the 1962 MGM picture starred Olivia de Havilland, Yvette Mimieux and a dishy George Hamilton). This is a show that seems to be catching fire on its merits alone.

``I'm really an experimental classicist,' says Sher, artistic director of Seattle's Intiman Theatre, where the musical premiered in 2003 before moving to New York in 2005, ``and one of the things about Guettel and Lucas' work is that you feel like it could be a classical Rodgers and Hammerstein musical from the '50s. But it's also completely new. It's what the theater used to be, and it's also completely now.'

It's the musical's depth of the characterization and nuances of psyche, he says, that set ``Piazza' apart from the usual crowd.

`` `Piazza' feels like an old-fashioned musical, but it does things emotionally that are pretty amazing,' Sher says. ``It affects audiences in completely different ways. People say this is what they wish musicals were like.'

The plot remains a ripe, old-fashioned melodrama about an American woman, Mrs. Margaret Johnson (Christine Andreas), who goes abroad in the '50s with her daughter, Clara (Elena Shaddow), a 26-year-old with a strangely innocent mind, the mind of a child. In Florence they meet Fabrizio (David Burnham), a swarthy hottie with a limited command of English. Soon Clara has found love, with its promise of redemption and threat of devastation.

While that's hardly an avant-garde story on the surface, Sher says the themes cut deep. If Broadway musicals usually tend toward the shallow and sunny side of existence, ``Piazza' is willing to look at the dark side.

``There's a lot in this piece about loneliness,' says Sher. ``The basic secret to the play is that all of us are really damaged, and yet all of us deserve to be loved. It's just that Clara's damage is more palpable.'

Marrying the story's lush period sensibility with its wistful edge is just the sort of key Lucas knows how to strike. Sher says the playwright behind the astral body high jinks of ``Prelude to a Kiss' and the Oedipal mysteries of ``Small Tragedy' was more than up to the challenge.

``Lucas is the top of the top. He's got delicate underwriting, a brilliant sense of plot,' says Sher. ``I don't think there's been a better adaptation. The more I work on it, the more I see that it's sort of flawless.'

Yet Sher reserves his highest praise for composer-lyricist Guettel, who won a Tony for this score.

``He's a brilliant genius,' says the director. ``He's unique and so special. People like him come along very, very rarely, I promise you.'

The grandson of the legendary Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame), Guettel has emerged in the top ranks of the next generation of Broadway composers. Best remembered locally for TheatreWorks' intriguing production of ``Floyd Collins' in 2001, Guettel has long had his eyes on Broadway, but he has been steadfastly unwilling to sell out his vision along the way.

``I'm extremely fortunate; I have money because of my grandfather,' he has said. ``I can live comfortably and try to work on the projects that move me, the shows that will have a lasting resonance, that's my goal. You can have grand aspirations and pursue them and fail. Maybe the pursuit itself is the thing.'

Reaching for the most perfect music he can muster, without catering to mainstream industry approval, has become his hallmark. He's known for melodies that soar even as they ache with melancholy.

New Yorker theater critic John Lahr put it this way: ``Guettel's kind of talent cannot be denied. He shouldn't change for Broadway; Broadway, if it is to survive as a creative theatrical force, should change for him.'

That refusal to compromise also marks Sher's approach to the material. Where some directors might be tempted to rest on their laurels right about now, Sher has been tweaking the musical before taking it on the road. He transformed the scenic design to fit theaters like San Francisco's Orpheum. And the cast had to be just so.

``It's the most demanding of work,' says Sher. ``It requires everything of an actor.'

`The Light in the Piazza'

By Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas

Where: Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., San Francisco

When: 8 tonight-Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday

Through: Aug. 27

Tickets: $35-$90. Call (40 998-8497, or see www.ticketmaster.com


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