Theater Review | 'Piazza' benefits from group of creative minds, both technical and artistic
September 23The image of a mother figure cradling her innocent child is commonly seen around the palaces, churches and museums of Florence, Italy. Another familiar image is the muscled form of a virile young man, simultaneously powerful and gentle in his naked beauty. "The Light in the Piazza," the Tony Award-winning musical by composer Adam Guettel (Best Score) and Tony-nominated book writer Craig Lucas, is set in 1950s Florence among the Madonnas and Davids of the Renaissance, each iconic image leaving its indelible imprint on the tale of parenthood and young love that shimmers in the glow of a golden afternoon. Based on the similarly titled novella by Elizabeth Spencer, "Piazza" tells the story of a mother, Margaret (played by Amelia Broome), on vacation in Tuscany with her daughter Clara (Erica Spyres). The serenity of the situation is broken when a local boy, Fabrizio (John Bambery), begins to passionately pursue his interest in Clara. The audience soon learns, through Margaret's aborted attempts to tell Fabrizio's family, that Clara experienced a debilitating injury as a child, which hindered certain aspects of her emotional development. Margaret is torn between her vain hope for a fuller recovery, her need to keep Clara dependent on her care and a real concern for Clara's ability to function as an adult. Beyond Clara and Fabrizio's narrative, the factor that makes "Piazza" so much more than a conventional love story musical is the tangible effect their romance has on those around them. In accepting her daughter's growing independence, Margaret is faced with the unpleasant prospect of her own marriage's disintegration, while Fabrizio's brother and his wife, Giuseppe and Franca (played by Christian Figueroa and Alison Eckert respectively), learn to see their own relationship struggles through a more optimistic lens. The is a sense of darkness in "Piazza," however, constantly hovering around the edges, evocative of the chiaroscuro "light-dark" paintings of the Renaissance. The darkness capitalizes on the fear that something inherently damaged within every human soul might somehow preclude the pursuit of happiness. This production, mounted by Speakeasy Stage Company at Boston Center for the Arts, attempts this brilliant and complex musical with mixed success. Director Scott Edmiston ("The Women", "Five by Tenn") and Musical Director José Delgado ("Johnny Guitar," "Caroline or Change") return "Piazza" to its original chamber musical form with just 12 actors and six musicians after it played with a larger company in the New York production. In the intimate space of the Roberts Studio Theatre, the ensemble of singers and instrumentalists on stage and behind it are able to adequately fill out the lush score, admirably succeeding in the very real challenge of performing Guettel's difficult music, notable for its irregular time signatures and unorthodox progressions. The show falters when it attempts to move beyond a simple presentation of the music. While attending to the intricacy of the score, several of the actors can only offer a single level to their supposedly multi-dimensional characters. As Fabrizio, Bambery gives a charming and poignant performance both when he speaks and in his simpler verses, but he abandons quality for quantity when his songs reach their climaxes. Eckert portrays Franca's jealousy and anger well, and sings beautifully, but fails to round out the character to make her sympathetic rather than simply snarky. Contrastingly, Spyres' turn as Clara strengthens as her character matures, from the emotionally simple-minded and sheltered child to the young woman coming into her own. Spyres' performance of the title song imbues Clara with shades of real emotional depth, injecting some of the complexity reflected in Guettel's material. The best performance of the night, however, belonged to Broome, who led the company as a sexy and saucy, but still extremely vulnerable Margaret. Through a series of asides and sung soliloquies, Broome revealed Margaret as the consummate mother, desperately clutching to the tenuous fantasy she constructed to cope with Clara's disability; the saddened wife, coming to terms with the failings in her marriage she didn't allow herself to see before; and the blooming woman, experiencing a liberation as she learns to let go. The technical production was somewhat uneven. Susan Zeeman Rogers' curious scenic design in the curtain-less Studio Theatre had some strange quirks when it tried to be innovative and some brilliantly successful pieces when it used traditional methods to enliven a simple set. Karen Perlow's lighting created a world of sunlight and shadows that evoked the story's struggle between the polished exterior and the reality underneath, while Charles Schoonmaker's costumes were beautifully constructed pieces of 1950s casual wealth. "The Light in the Piazza" is far from perfect, but its glaring mistakes are few and far between. With a production that will likely get stronger as it settles into its run, SpeakEasy continues to prove itself as a constant source of quality small theater in Boston.
