Sunday, May 08, 2005
The Light in the Piazza
I remember when I was a youngster, maybe 14 or so, maybe younger, I saw the movie of WEST SIDE STORY and was so deeply moved by it that I started weeping in the movie house and kept weeping until I could get home and write about it in my journal...I think I was so overwhelmed by the experience that i even spoke into my little portable tape recorder about it, because I had to talk about it with someone, and get the words out of me, because to contain how I felt about what I had just seen was painful...I needed to communicate about it...Bernstein and Sondheim's music and lyrics, the acting of Natalie Wood (whatever did happen to Richard Beymer? and who was he anyway?) and the stunningly emotional choreography of Jerome Robbins all added up to telling a story that was almost too much for my young heart to hold.It stimulated my need to be in the theater and be an actress.
Well, yesterday, at a matinee performance, Peter and I saw Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas' The Light In The Piazza, at Lincoln Center, directed by Bart Sher, and for the first time since London, certainly for the first time since being back in NYC, the same sort of feelings of discovery and rapture filled me again. This several hours contained the perfect blend of theatrical arts: song, a perfect book, clothing, scene design, all joined together by some of the best acting I have ever seen on a musical stage. Bart Sher's direction was inspirational, and if Tony Awards are not won all around, why would I ever want another Tony Nomination? Every so often, a standard is set...for me, seeing the work yesterday was one of those standard-setting times. I wanted the matinee to never end...I wanted to go back to the box office and buy seats for the evening show immediately...if I had been alone, i would have...but part of the utter joy of it was being able to share it with Peter, and I wanted to share a nice dinner with him too, which is just what we did do...
ANYWAY: Adam Guettel is the miracle writer of our age....Jason Robert Brown is deeply gifted, clever and melodic...his work is archly virtuoso...THE LAST FIVE YEARS hits all the right nerves and I consider it a seminal theater piece that captures what modern people need and feel and laugh about...but Adam Guettel is another thing altogether: he has within him the ability to write music that seems more like "channeling" than writing...his characters musically speak through him...he writes down their needs, in notes and melody and rythyms, he follows where the characters' journeys take him... the world of the play writes note to follow note, rather than Guettel writing music for the actors to follow.
FLOYD COLLINS thrilled and surprised me every turn of the way...and its totality, its need to be an entire story told from beginning to end, is underscored by the fact that none of the songs are as good sung separately as they are in the body of the story...no "cabaret" material there...it all needs to be performed together to be most powerful. I think that is what good theater music writing needs to be. And I felt the same seamlessness in PIAZZA: each song came from and went into the unfolding of the story; each musical expression sighed from the exact moment in the journey the character needed it to...and like a sigh, the expression is delicate and ephemeral, yet sturdily filled from beginning to end with the very soul of the person sighing. It is no accident that parts of songs are filled with the simple syllable "ah" or "oh"...what else can be said when the sheer act of melody says it all? And when the story has brought the character and the audience right to the same point of knowing exactly what the moment emotionally calls for?
No words are needed. All words are understood.
The cast, from one end to the other, is powerful and perfect. Victoria Clark will win, must win, all awards. She is wonderful as the mother. Kelly O'Hara is a gorgeous and full-throated daughter. Matthew Morrison is perfect and believable as the italian boy, and his whole family is pitch perfect:Patty Cohenour as the mama, Sarah Berry as the sister-in-law, and on and on...Marc Harelik is a wonderful,warm and soigne Italian haberdashery-store-owning Poppa...all the actors are blessed to be in such a show.
But above all: ALL of us are blessed to have Adam Guettel in our midst. This is no ordinary talent, because his is one of those that changes the way we hear, that demands we change the way we hear music in our musical theater.
Peter is already ordering the CD, which comes out May 24th. And I want to get my voice in shape in case I ever get a chance to play that Mother role! That's the same way I felt when i was 14 and encountered WESTSIDE STORY, the movie! Inspired.
I can barely wait to see THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA again.
Well, yesterday, at a matinee performance, Peter and I saw Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas' The Light In The Piazza, at Lincoln Center, directed by Bart Sher, and for the first time since London, certainly for the first time since being back in NYC, the same sort of feelings of discovery and rapture filled me again. This several hours contained the perfect blend of theatrical arts: song, a perfect book, clothing, scene design, all joined together by some of the best acting I have ever seen on a musical stage. Bart Sher's direction was inspirational, and if Tony Awards are not won all around, why would I ever want another Tony Nomination? Every so often, a standard is set...for me, seeing the work yesterday was one of those standard-setting times. I wanted the matinee to never end...I wanted to go back to the box office and buy seats for the evening show immediately...if I had been alone, i would have...but part of the utter joy of it was being able to share it with Peter, and I wanted to share a nice dinner with him too, which is just what we did do...
ANYWAY: Adam Guettel is the miracle writer of our age....Jason Robert Brown is deeply gifted, clever and melodic...his work is archly virtuoso...THE LAST FIVE YEARS hits all the right nerves and I consider it a seminal theater piece that captures what modern people need and feel and laugh about...but Adam Guettel is another thing altogether: he has within him the ability to write music that seems more like "channeling" than writing...his characters musically speak through him...he writes down their needs, in notes and melody and rythyms, he follows where the characters' journeys take him... the world of the play writes note to follow note, rather than Guettel writing music for the actors to follow.
FLOYD COLLINS thrilled and surprised me every turn of the way...and its totality, its need to be an entire story told from beginning to end, is underscored by the fact that none of the songs are as good sung separately as they are in the body of the story...no "cabaret" material there...it all needs to be performed together to be most powerful. I think that is what good theater music writing needs to be. And I felt the same seamlessness in PIAZZA: each song came from and went into the unfolding of the story; each musical expression sighed from the exact moment in the journey the character needed it to...and like a sigh, the expression is delicate and ephemeral, yet sturdily filled from beginning to end with the very soul of the person sighing. It is no accident that parts of songs are filled with the simple syllable "ah" or "oh"...what else can be said when the sheer act of melody says it all? And when the story has brought the character and the audience right to the same point of knowing exactly what the moment emotionally calls for?
No words are needed. All words are understood.
The cast, from one end to the other, is powerful and perfect. Victoria Clark will win, must win, all awards. She is wonderful as the mother. Kelly O'Hara is a gorgeous and full-throated daughter. Matthew Morrison is perfect and believable as the italian boy, and his whole family is pitch perfect:Patty Cohenour as the mama, Sarah Berry as the sister-in-law, and on and on...Marc Harelik is a wonderful,warm and soigne Italian haberdashery-store-owning Poppa...all the actors are blessed to be in such a show.
But above all: ALL of us are blessed to have Adam Guettel in our midst. This is no ordinary talent, because his is one of those that changes the way we hear, that demands we change the way we hear music in our musical theater.
Peter is already ordering the CD, which comes out May 24th. And I want to get my voice in shape in case I ever get a chance to play that Mother role! That's the same way I felt when i was 14 and encountered WESTSIDE STORY, the movie! Inspired.
I can barely wait to see THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA again.
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