[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Light in the Piazza" at Rabbit Run

[Bob Abelman]

Rabbit Run pulls a rabbit from its hat 

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the News-Herald 7/23/10

 The Light in the Piazza opened last weekend at Rabbit Run Theater.  What in the world were they thinking?

 

The musical takes us on a romantic excursion to majestic Rome and Florence, along with vacationing 26-year-old Clara Johnson and her Mom, Margaret, from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

 

Rome?  Rabbit Run Theater is a barn with a small summer stock stage and a limited summer stock budget located smack in Madison Township.  Florence?  

 

The music and lyrics by Adam Guettel are operatic in nature, with songs taking on the airs of a classical aria rather than a show tune.

 

The brilliant Guettel is the grandson of Richard Rodgers-of the legendary Rodgers and Hammerstein-and is renowned for writing complex melodies performed with huge orchestras on the New York stage.

 

Opera?  Orchestra?  Classical?  Complexity?  This is community theater.

 

Innocent Clara falls desperately in love with an enchanting Italian boy named Fabrizio Naccarelli, whose family immediately embraces her despite her mother's mysterious attempts to squelch their budding romance.  Italian is spoken and sung throughout the production.

 

Italian?

 

Against all odds, despite the risks and challenges-and in Italian--Rabbit Run does a masterful job of presenting this simple yet dramatic story and offering what the New York Times labeled the most romantic score since West Side Story.   

 

Inspired and ambitious, director Brint Learned, musical director Beth Johnson and scenic designers Julie Harter and Maria Thomas Lister take all that is big and imposing in the original work and transform it into an intimate theatrical experience. 

 

They swapped out the huge orchestra for a lovely five-piece string ensemble that includes harp. 

 

They minimized the set design so as to create romanticized impressions of Italy.  

 

Their biggest challenge, of course, was finding performers capable of handling this music, speaking Italian, making the subtle transitions from the spoken word to music and back again, and creating real people from the characters that populate this play.

 

Although the vocal range required to perform this show is a stretch for many of the players, this cast is wonderful.

 

Nancy Shimonek Brooks is superb in the role of Margaret Johnson, Clara's overly protective mother.  She simultaneously communicates the frustrations of parenting and its pleasures, and effectively displays the sadness associated with having a romantic soul lying dormant in a bad marriage.

 

Shimonek Brooks also taps the lighter side of her character, which is something other productions tend to deemphasize.  Although this takes a little steam out of the mystery surrounding Margaret's efforts to separate Clara from Fabrizio, lighter works well in this Rabbit Run rendering.



Caitlin Rose is a delight as Clara.  Listening to her sing is worth the trip to Madison Township.  Or Florence, for that matter.  She captures her character's yearning for independence with subtle grace and has developed authentic and wonderful relationships with Shimonek Brooks' Margaret and James Penca's Fabrizio.  Penca is absolutely charming as Clara's love interest.    

 

These portrayals are matched by wonderful work by the rest of the ensemble, especially Nicholas Varricchio as Fabrizio's ne're-do-well older brother, Amanda Fertal as his wandering wife, Hugh Craduck as the Naccarelli family patriarch and Sandy Kosovich Peck as Fabrizio's mother.

 

Learned's staging is delicate and fluid, as are the set changes, creating an interesting and immediately accessible world for the audience.

 

Even if you do not appreciate opera or understand Italian without subtitles, this production of The Light in the Piazza will bring out the romantic in everyone.

 

What in the world were they thinking?

 

The Light in the Piazza continues through August 1 at the Rabbit Run Theater, 5648 W. Chapel Rd., Madison Township.  For tickets, $15 and $17, call 440-428-7092 or visit www.rabbitrunonline.org.
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