The Light In the Piazza originated as a novel, was done in the 1960's as a film, and has had a fairly active life as a musical, one that was nominated for and won Tony awards. I haven't seen other productions, nor the movie, nor read the book, but based on the version I saw at Arena Stage in Washington DC this week, I'd have to give it about a C- or worse.
Part of my disappointment with the piece is purely personal; musical comedy as a genre is OK, but I'm no fan of opera, and this is one of those vehicles that takes the operatic approach -- sung dialogue, rather than any catchy tunes (or any tunes at all). So if you happen to like that kind of thing, maybe you'll like it. I just fail to see the point of singing (caterwauling?) lines of dialogue when dialogue would do as well. It usually suggests that the dialogue itself is pretty vacuous.
That's definitely the case here. Most musical theater requires the audience to suspend disbelief to some extent or other, but LitP carries this to an extreme, and an unsatisfying one at that. As Wikipedia's synopsis (link above) quaintly puts it, Clara, the young lady at the center of the play, has "the mentality of a child" because she was kicked in the head by a horse during her childhood. Her mother (Margaret) knows this, which is the reason for her initial reluctance to let Clara get involved with the young Italian fellow (Fabrizio) who falls in love with her.
And there's the rub, for eventually, Margaret decides to let the two marry, in fact, she pushes for it actively, putting up bribe money for the boy's family (who have learned, or guessed at, the truth), and persuading Fabrizio's father by "taking a walk" with him! (This sort of euphemism seems seriously anachronistic for the 1960's, when this thing was originally produced.) All that is still in the best tradition of the musical comedy: Love conquers all, happily ever after, etc. But the outcome depends on a cruel, amoral hoax: Poor Fabrizio, "blinded by love," does not realize despite occasional hints from Clara's childish behavior, that her development is arrested. Nor is he ever told!
Here's a clear recipe for a happily-ever-after marriage that is not going to work out. Poor Fabrizio will learn the truth eventually (unless he remains twelve years old too); won't he feel cheated and deceived? Is it OK with Margaret because her American daughter needs a little joy in her life, and Fab is just a no-count Italian? Or is she that desperate to get Clara off her hands? I suppose the optimist scenario is that the marriage works miracles on Clara's mind and she assumes "the mentality of an adult," but for me, disbelief can't be suspended quite that long.
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