“Certain places are hard to describe directly, certain places in the heart.” That’s composer Adam Guettel and librettist Craig Lucas in the program note for the original Broadway production of the Italy-set romance The Light in the Piazza. They’re talking about their source material, Elizabeth Spencer’s 1959 novella. Yet ask anyone who loves the musical to describe it, and they often have trouble finding the words; it holds a special place in the heart.
Piazza might not seem like a natural choice for City Center Encores! current summer selection: The 2005 Lincoln Center Theater production—directed by Bartlett Sher, starring Victoria Clark, who’d earn her first Best Actress Tony, and Kelli O’Hara—ran for more than 500 performances, kicking off the Sher era at LCT as well as the first of many musical collabs between Sher and O’Hara; it also won six Tonys, including Best Score for Guettel and Best Orchestrations for Guettel, Ted Sperling, and Bruce Coughlin. (Best Musical, however, went to the silly-walking, French-taunting, scenery-chewing Monty Python screen-to-stage vehicle Spamalot.) So Piazza isn’t exactly problematic or unappreciated. It’s no Mack and Mabel…and I say that as an unabashed fan of Mack and Mabel.
But sometimes you have the chance to, in the words of another not-so-obvious Encores! show, “give us more to see.” And that’s exactly what this gorgeous Piazza, directed by Chay Yew—whose work ranges from Luis Alfaro’s Sophocles–meets–South Central Oedipus El Rey to Lauren Yee’s electric Cambodian Rock Band musical—does.
The luminous Ruthie Ann Miles (a Tony winner for Sher’s The King and I, currently playing the Beggar Woman in Sweeney Todd) and sensational newcomer Anna Zavelson (a University of Michigan student making her New York debut) are Margaret and Clara, a mother and daughter from Winston-Salem, N.C., on holiday in Florence. Clara is wide-eyed, vulnerable, and completely unguarded; Margaret is overprotective—rightly so. “She’s not quite as she seems. She’s very young for her age,” Margaret tactfully explains in one of her many audience asides, though she eventually reveals that at age 12 Clara was kicked by a Shetland pony. So when Clara is courted by a dashing Florentine named Fabrizio (James D. Gish), Margaret is understandably wary. Another sign to proceed with caution: There’s something of a spark between Margaret and Fabrizio’s even-more-dashing father, Signor Naccarelli (Ivan Hernandez).
Confession: In the past, Piazza had left me a little cold. But with Zavelson’s open-hearted delivery of Clara’s sunny solo “The Beauty Is” (“This is wanting something./ This is reaching for it./ This is wishing that a moment would arrive.”), I was hooked. Later, you’ll hear Miles deliver a heartbreaking reprise of “The Beauty Is” as her character recalls Clara’s life-altering accident in slow-motion: “So much wanting something…/ So much reaching for it…/ So much wishing just to have one moment back.” It’s not just the tonal shift but also the lyrical echo that makes the writing so rich.
And while the Italian lines and lyrics might seem like an obstacle—a few are helpfully translated by the English-speaking Florentine characters, but there are no supertitles—trust me, you’ll understand. When Fabrizio runs back to his father’s shop to sing “Il Mondo Era Vuoto (The World Was Empty),” it’s clear that he’s a man hopelessly, desperately in love. And sharp-eared listeners might even notice his lyric “Clara, la luce nella piazza”: Clara, the light in the piazza. Beautifully foreshadowing the title song in Act 2, when Zavelson is declaring her love for him.
If the song “The Light in the Piazza” gets you a little misty, Miles’ last number, “Fable”—Margaret’s mediation on love, fairy tales, and happy endings, culminating in her nevertheless hopeful wishes for Clara—will get the tears fully flowing. We also can’t forget to mention the piazza itself: Clint Ramos and Miguel Urbino have propped up the orchestra on columns that recall the Uffizi Gallery’s, and added mobile open archways that could have been lifted straight from Clara’s sketchpad. And David Weiner’s lighting—all warm golds and dreamy blues and purples—couldn’t be more romantic.
The Light in the Piazza opened June 21, 2023, at City Center and runs through June 25. Tickets and information: nycitycenter.org
