NEW YORK
At times affecting and at others cloyingly antiseptic, "The Light in the Piazza" is at once the most beautiful and the most perplexing new musical of the Broadway season.
The beauty part comes from Adam Guettel's lush, impassioned score and the Merchant-and-Ivory-style refinement of Michael Yeargan's scenery and Catherine Zuber's costumes. The consternation, however, arises from the slender story these lovely appurtenances adorn, a muted tale based on a 1960 novella that unfolds as a wispy and unconvincing melodrama on the stage of the Vivian Beaumont Theater, where it opened last night.
Kelli O'Hara and Matthew Morrison in "The Light in the Piazza."
(Joan Marcus Via AP)
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The painstaking care that has been taken with the material, which Guettel -- grandson of Richard Rodgers and composer of "Floyd Collins" -- has been honing for six years, is evident in director Bartlett Sher's elegant if stolid staging for Lincoln Center Theater. Several performers, most notably Victoria Clark as an unfulfilled American woman, are sublime examplars of how actors can flourish even when forced to work in conditions of extreme genteel confinement.
The show is the quintessence of taste, and there's the rub. Everything feels formal and as such vaguely uninviting, like a magnificent marble bathroom you've been shown into, with towels so delicately embroidered you're afraid to wipe your hands on them. There's an instance early on when the Broadway dancer Michael Berresse, playing a slick dandy of a Florentine, suddenly extends a leg and executes a few sexy turns. It seems, momentarily, as if "Piazza" is going to try for something earthier, more urgent. But just as quickly the incident recedes and the production reverts to the realm of comely stateliness.
The gauzy milieu of "The Light in the Piazza" is that of rich American ladies in Italy. They're the types who traipse through art museums in perfectly tailored Chanel suits and linger over Camparis in sun-dappled outdoor cafes. For Brits and Yanks in literature, the Italians forever tend a garden of earthly delights (see "Brideshead Revisited," "A Room With a View") and Elizabeth Spencer's novella follows in that vein. Set in the summer of 1953, the story tracks Clark's Margaret Johnson, the wife of a North Carolina cigarette executive, as her daughter, Clara (Kelli O'Hara), becomes involved with Fabrizio Naccarelli (Matthew Morrison), an ardent young Italian from a well-to-do family. (The novella was also turned into a 1962 movie starring Olivia de Havilland and Yvette Mimieux.)
Ostensibly, it is the tension over Clara's mental handicap that propels "Piazza." Though the headstrong Clara professes herself ready to be released from the wall of security her mother draws around her, Margaret and, by long distance, her husband, Roy (Beau Gravitte), express grave reservations about allowing their daughter a romance that could lead to something more serious. It seems that Clara was kicked in the head by a pony when she was a little girl, and the mishap jumbled her circuits. The 26-year-old Clara is emotionally immature, we're told, in possession of the wisdom and judgment of a 12-year-old.
Leave aside for a moment Clara's disabilities. The subject that more deeply engrosses Guettel and librettist Craig Lucas is that of the emotional development of the mother. In a series of touching solos, the lonely Margaret slowly unburdens herself to us, watching in pride and envy as Clara's feelings for Fabrizio deepen. It is Margaret's awakening to her own sensuality, her capacity for growth, that the musical ultimately chronicles. In her final soliloquy, titled "Fable," Clark sings an eloquent lullaby to the worries that have left her feeling pinched and parched.
Now, about that kick to Clara's head: Not for a minute of "Piazza" does the character seem mentally deficient, and this being a linchpin of the plot, the piece has a credibility gap. Yes, there is a scene in which Clara gets lost in the streets of Florence, and a song in the second act, "Tirade," in which she erupts intemperately after Fabrizio's sister-in-law (Sarah Uriarte Berry) flirts with Fabrizio. (Actually, this only has the effect of making Clara seem more combustibly Italian than the Italians.) But a disability that barely registers tends to weaken your faith in the storytelling. You find yourself wondering: Why are they making such an opera about it?
Guettel's score is poured out for us like a velvety soup. The melodies are tantalizing, and though some, such as Clark's "Dividing Day" and O'Hara's rendition of the title song, convey a spectrum of subtle color and shading, the personalities of some of the numbers are difficult to distinguish in a single sitting; many of them tend to trail off in similar ways. The lyrics are for the most part unmemorable and, in one case, undecipherable: The number is entirely in Italian. At other times, words are simply done away with, the singers making do with long, curlicuing "ahhhhhhhs."
While the roles of the members of Fabrizio's family are for the most part underdeveloped -- only Mark Harelik, as Fabrizio's father, makes an impression -- Morrison finely embodies the exuberance of young love. The look of "Piazza," too, is an achievement. Yeargan's sets conjure the city in all its monumental allure, and Zuber's immaculate suits for Clark and dresses for O'Hara offer fashion of the '50s in handsome flashback.
Yet there's a monotony to "Piazza" that blunts its impact. It allows you in, but only up to a point. The light it sheds is not sufficient to illuminate the entire canvas. What you get, unsatisfactorily, is only enough for an obstructed view.
The Light in the Piazza, book by Craig Lucas, music and lyrics by Adam Guettel. Directed by Bartlett Sher. Musical staging, Jonathan Butterell; music direction, Ted Sperling; lighting, Christopher Akerlind; sound, Acme Sound Partners. With Patti Cohenour, Joseph Siravo. Approximately 2 hours 20 minutes. At Vivian Beaumont Theater, 150 W. 65th St., New York. Call 212-239-6200 or visit www.lct.org.
