Love, Practically: Light in the Piazza @ the Paramount

The Light in the Piazza @ the Paramount
Through April 29, Tickets $25-$72

The reviews are in, and it's unanimous: the light in this piazza is startlingly beautiful. Misha Berson puts it best:

When the Adam Guettel-Craig Lucas show had its world premiere here at the Intiman Theatre in 2003, this tale of a mother and daughter's life-changing sojourn in 1953 Italy was a pen-and-ink sketch. In Bartlett Sher's splendid staging, it is now a vibrant oil painting -- a thing of beauty, though not unflawed.

The show returns to Seattle trailing a train of six Tony Awards, and it's easy to see why Michael Yeargan (the monumental-to-intimate-and-back scenic design) and Christopher Akerlind (the shimmering, atmospheric lighting) won theirs.

Though the mikes on opening night weren't always kind to the principals-- the well-brung-up Margaret Johnson (Christine Andreas), her childishly moody daughter, Clara (Katie Rose Clarke), and the doggedly lovestruck Fabrizio Naccarelli (David Burnham with a terrific supporting performance by his brilliant white teeth) -- they're all gifted singing actors. We might ask if Burnham could dial back that passionate break in his voice.

There's more polish to the story now, and the Italian family, the Naccarellis, have more to say -- delightfully, largely in Italian. Here again the casting is remarkable: Signor (David Ledingham) and Signora (Diana DiMarzio) Naccarelli are suave, theatrical Italian parents but with a quiet tenderness, and Fabrizio's brother Giuseppe (Jonathan Hammond) and his wife Franca (Wendi Bergamini) do a bittercomic turn as the angry couple. (Hammond's clowny, wrong-footed Giuseppe reminded us of Brad Garrett in 'Til Death.)

The music is so much more engrossing than the usual musical when-it's-loud-it's-important bombast. Crosscut's Tom May says, "Guettel reaches a level of heartrending eloquence that easily compares with Sondheim," and that Sondheim reference is right on. Not just because it's complex (like complex emotions!), but because of the shadows in it.

When the P-I's Joe Adcock downplays the show's theme as an exercise in "wishful thinking," he's not admitting that the music tells you that. (Or, helpfully, Margaret, when she points out that love is "fake," a "fable.") The revelation of the show is whether we give ourselves permission to experience the love that comes, for better or worse, for now or forever. There's a truly twisted joy in the deceptive set-up of Clara and Fabrizio's romance -- even this, Piazza says, even this could happen, and what about you?

Photos: left, Katie Rose Clarke as Clara Johnson; right, Christine Andreas as Margaret Johnson. Photos © Joan Marcus.