Review of THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA by Theatre Cedar Rapids

 

The Light in the Piazza, Theatre Cedar Rapids Brucemore offering for 2024 takes a noble crack at a clearly Sondheim inspired musical. It doesn’t match Sondheim in music or plot, but falling a bit short of genius is still pretty damn good. Piazza debuted in 2003 and was based on an earlier book. It has gone through further tummy tucks for later successful New York and London runs. In London, the role of Margaret was played by semi-retired opera diva Rene Flemming.

This leads me to remind readers that you have to work a bit harder to appreciate many of today’s musicals. Hummable tunes and chorus casts large enough to fill a small hall have been left in the dust. In this rendering the four-member chorus is relegated to a few ballet moves and posing like statues in the stage set’s niches. Even with the splash limited to lush lighting and more limited tete a tetes, that isn’t the biggest problem with The Light in the Piazza. For me, it was that it is almost half-spoken or sung in Italian and there are no operatic sub-titles to help an audience over this linguistic hump. I admire the time that the acting company must have devoted to mastering both real Italian and the accents of non-native people attempting to speak English or Italian. Yet, I must admit to losing where the story was going on occasion.  It didn’t kill the piece for me, but I would have been helped by some better translation.

What I did get was that sometime in the 1950’s a well-off southern mother (Margaret), who has some long standing marital problems herself, brings her daughter (Clara) to Florence for a vacation. A wayward wind blows Clara’s hat right into the hands of a young Italian (Fabrizo) and bingo “attraction at first sight.” Clara is bowled over and mother Margaret goes into protective mode.  It is then revealed that Clara has been kicked by a horse at a young age and is now physically a woman but is lacking in normal mental and emotional development. Margaret is afraid if Clara is allowed to fall in love, she will be jilted as soon as the young man or his family discovers her disability. I think you can imagine the rest of the story without any help from me.      

Don’t get me wrong. This is still a production well worth seeing. The performance takes place outdoors in a natural amphitheater. The set, composed of beautiful Renaissance arches and stairs, takes on with lighting  gorgeous shades of golden Florentine sunshine as well as moody violet-tinted evening hours. A neat little working fountain held the left side of the stage and had a tiny copy of Michaelangelo’s David at its center. This supplies a somewhat ironic comment on the lover's developing relationship. In other words, the stage design was perfecto.  

Although the young lovers are important, the glue that holds the piece together is the mother (Margaret), played by Rebecca Fields Moffitt. She takes over the part with authority and along the way  is both physically and vocally more convincing than the young lovers. She manages to fold her own unhappy marriage into her desire to protect her daughter while recognizing and playing the comic moments nicely.

The bittersweet semi-operatic score is ideal for this dark romance, although it would help if Catharine Blades (Clara) could find a way to indicating her affliction in manner as well as in song. She has a lovely voice, but seems so perfectly normal that if we had not been told we might not think she has the problem her mother says she has. Fabrizio, played by Tegas Gururaja, also manages the difficult vocals well and does display the physical tentativeness of a young Italian who is not quite the typical smooth Italian Roue often depicted in films. Max Moreno, (Signor Naccarelli), Fabrizo’s very Italian haberdasher father, was solid right down the line.  Fabrizio’s older brother had some potential comic contrasts to his more sedate younger brother that were never quite realized. Perhaps, he was not given enough latitude by the director to exploit this contrast and thereby lightening the mood a bit more often. 

Audience reaction at the performance we saw was polite, but did not capture the spontaneous joy that occurred at the end of Sondheim’s A little Night Music last year. The Light in the Piazza was still pleasurable and definitely a fine entertainment for a summer evening. TCR is to be admired for choosing and presenting it.  

 

DEATH IN A GHOSTLY HUE by Susan Van Kirk

 

I’ll start with my bias warning. Susan Van Kirk was our next-door neighbor. My wife is one of her beta readers. While teaching English at our local high school, Sue taught both of our children and my wife taught her kids in elementary school. Sue was and remains one of my wife’s best friends. This also means there are identifiable local references throughout the book that can only be enjoyed by a real resident of the fictional town used as a setting. These are meaningless to a general reader, but they are sure delightful for us.  

“So, say it ain’t so Sue!”  Not the final Art Center Mystery! Just because Jill banished the ghost, there are plenty of other loose ends to tie up. The love affair with Sam is just getting going, the personality change in Ivan Truelove needs explaining, Louise’s dating habits could bring on catastrophe at any moment, and Jill’s family cannot stay out of trouble for more than twenty minutes. All those valuable paintings from the judge might be a target for thieves and surely the Babbling Brook Community Church must be ripe for another foray. I admit finding another body in the basement of the art center might be pushing it, but what might Jill do with a body found frozen inside the big freezer plant next to the slaughterhouse?  Just a thought.

Back to business. Death in a Ghostly Hue, is Sue’s third art center mystery and I really do hope not the last.  All of the first three are set in a small midwestern town and take place in and around its Art Center. Jill Madison, the main character, runs the enterprise and the ins and outs of mounting exhibitions and the problems of working with a board of directors are given full shrift. The center itself has been endowed by Jill’s mother, who was a talented and successful painter.

The beginning of the book seemed a bit too obvious as a conflict set-up for me. We learn of a man named Quinn Parsons, who killed Jill Madison’s parents eight years ago in a drunk driving incident and has now suddenly returned to town to make amends publicly. From there the plot moves on so quickly that before I could worry about my initial doubts, the killer is himself killed.

Madison’s brother becomes the prime suspect and the novel now really begins. Jill and her quirky friend Angie (all good detectives need a second fiddle) now concentrate on what might explain the behavior of Mr. Parsons and what might be the hidden motive of a new murderer. Undergirding this is an exploration of the nature of forgiveness in the form of the presence of a Civil War ghost meandering about in the art center rafters. Only Jill can see and hear him and he turns out to be the most interesting character in the book as he provides the key to understanding his own 19^th century demise, the killing of Jill’s parents, and the difficulty of forgiveness for an act that continues to haunt long after it has been committed.   

Van Kirk’s work is definitely becoming more sophisticated with each succeeding book she publishes. She shows better and more deft plotting, more interesting characters, and now a definite sense of playful humor. This is a fun read. It goes quickly and we get just enough serious thought about a significant moral issue to give the book more depth than the average cozy mystery.     

Within its genre this offering gets a solid 5 out of 5.     

Review of WAITRESS at Theatre Cedar Rapids

 Waitress by Lots o people

Marita May O’Connell has a wonderful voice and a lithe winsomeness in the title role of Jenna in Waitress at the Theatre Cedar Rapids (TCR), Still, she cannot carry a flawed book and a director who had a hard time controlling focus and keeping the supporting characters from going wild.

It is hard to know where to start here, but let’s note this adaptation from a long-shot winner at the Sundance Festival has been meddled with by a later film (which was pretty successful) and at least two Broadway re-incarnations. I haven’t seen any of them, but I find the coherence of the central image--a young woman from the south who has a lousy marriage and a penchant for making pies lacking. 

Think for a minute. Why pies? They are creamy sweet and happy. But a woman whose major goal in life is to bake them is consigned to the kitchen and apparently a group of men who want them to stay there and be pregnant. What would change in this piece if Jenna wanted to be a computer programmer? Earl remains a stupid redneck asshole with or without confining Jenna to the kitchen. Oogie would be an intolerable boor all the same. It is hard to believe that sensitive Jenna and shy little Dawn would find them attractive with or without a slice of pie, but if the women all had ambitions beyond waitress, those male creeps would be gone in a flash. And then there is our adultery-fueled sexual predator doctor. I am sure he would have jumped at the opportunity for some office nooky even if Jenna’s irrational smooch had not been offered? Pie does not deepen or help explain the plight of a pregnant woman in a bad relationship who tries to work through her issues by sleeping with her doctor? Is pie an aphrodisiac since her best friends are still copulating up a storm with nasty or looney men?  Let’s face it, this ship was leaking before it left the port. And that was before Jenna had apparently got drunk and been impregnated by her unprotected slob of a husband. 

I’ll mention two other areas briefly that contributed to my negative reaction. In the first act, the sound of the orchestra was so loud that it was hurting my wife’s ears. The amped-up mikes of the actors increased the din to the point that when I checked with several people in our group at the intermission, none of them could understand the lyrics or dialogue. Had we not been with the group, my wife and I would probably have left then and there. Thank goodness the sound engineer got that issue under better control in Act II and we could understand a bit more of what was going on and being sung about. 

I am still also bothered by the problem of figuring out what year this all took place. Pretty much before cell phones, but then Earl pulls one out to take a photo. Wierd! Certainly the woman's movement did not seem to have reached this southern town. Not much clue in the costumes either as the hemlines were all over the place. Dawn goes lime green stripes and pulls focus wherever she moves in the second act. Then there is the wedding in the cafe rather than a church. Maybe love is a table, but Evangelical Christianity which is a strong feature of the South, only gets a cursory treatment and a teenage pastor. . 

That brings me to the chorus or ensemble that meanders in and out at various times. They seemed to be more of a distracting background of unmotivated movement than a critical part of the action. Their contributions were limited to providing a desultory dance or two and some occasional backup vocals. The director appeared to have little interest in spending time with them. Most were young and needed a stronger hand on how focus works on a stage. My sense they were often marking time while waiting for their next contribution.     

TCR has done much better work than this.  

 

 

 

Review of Sharpe's Command by Bernard Cornwell

Sharp’s Command by Bernard Cornwell

Cornwell has written over fifty assorted military history potboilers and this is one of them. Major Sharpe and his ragtag group of men face huge odds in a series of 18^th century battles in Spain. They win by the hair of their chinny chin chins each time. There is plenty of blood and gore and little time given to the suffering that underlies all wars. Cornwell’s knowledge of ancient weaponry, period military tactics, and history is impressive, but over-all this is a summer throw-a-way. Action without depth has been a good combination for this prolific author.

I give it 2.5 of 5. 

Book Review of The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs enjoys her new family as Vera Lynn croons “The White Cliffs of Dover.”  How fitting is that! What can one say when a treasured fictional friend you have followed from a servant’s abode through two world wars is retired.  Jacqueline Winspear’s 18^th Mazie Dobbs adventure, The Comfort of Ghosts is a satisfying close, but leaves just a smidgen of an opening for the author to change her mind if she wishes to continue the story beyond the end of WWII.

Rationing is still a heavy burden on life in England when the book opens. The troops are coming home, but many, including Billy’s son Will, have been psychologically damaged by their experiences.  Then comes the discovery of an undercover wartime plan to train groups of citizens, some as young as 12 or 13, to become a new “Resistance” in the country should the Nazis invade. Maisie finds four children who are a part of this plan “squatting” terror-filled in a London flat after witnessing a murder on a country estate where the owner has been hosting parties catering to German sympathizers.

To save the children, Masie promises to solve the murder. The unraveling is, as usual, full of twists and turns. Masie’s longtime friend Priscilla comes back into the picture as does the final section that circles all the way back to the tragic death of her husband James.    

Winspear’s simple straight-forward prose is masterfully combined with her skillful insertions of all the background material needed to make this story coherent for a first-time reader. However, the narrative is much richer and enjoyable if you have followed Maise right from the start and assimilated the details of her beginnings in the servant quarters, her series of happy as well as tragic love affairs, and her work as an investigator and psychological analyst. As one of that rank of readers, I will simply close with a line from the epilogue. It says it all about Masie’s hold on us and our attachment to Ms. Winspear’s plot-making, historical acumen, and emotional wisdom. 

             “Maisie reflected on the passage of time and how one path had led to the next,

often by chance and sometimes by intention, though invariably with a few sharp,

            uncomfortable turns.”    

Daniel Silva The Order

 

Mr. Silva is an accomplished author of over 20 espionage thrillers. This one seems long and dense--perhaps because I was reading it in a small print paperback edition. You may also not be ready for quite this much medieval church history and some of the political bias that appears. On the other hand, The Order continues to draw you in. The plot centers on the murder of a pope by an ultra-right-wing faction with a plan to take over the entire Catholic church. Silva claims the book is a fictional elegy on the age-old curse that the Jews killed Jesus and it draws heavily on Pius XII’s treatment of the Jews during World War II. The current anger and desperation over the still raging Gaza War also lurks as an undercurrent. 

The savior of the Catholic faith is, ironically, no other than a Jew. Gabriel Allon, master assassin, head of Israeli Intelligence, art restorer, and tender family man is this time summoned from a vacation holiday in Venice to investigate the possible murder of a pope. The mystery is bound up in a literary enigma. There are multiple ancient copies of biblical texts available and whether there is or was a gospel of Pilate, whether it exists but is a forgery, or whether its potential content might be terrible enough to elicit the murder a pope keeps the narrative boiling right down to the very last pages.

This is not an easy read and general critical opinion is mixed, but Silva is a master writer of location detail and Gabriel Allon is a fascinating and complicated character.   

I give it a 4 out of 5

 

Christoper Fowler –White Corridor

 

White Corridor is a 2007 entry in Fowler's long line of Bryant and May adventures and I had not read it before. Our heroes remain two older-than-dirt detectives who function out of the so-called “Peculiar Crimes” Unit of Scotland Yard.  Arthur Bryant is a curmudgeon who dabbles in the occult and strange ancient history while his partner John May is more normal and goes by the book occasionally. The two main characters and their contrasting ways of reaching the solutions are always ingenious, humorous and historically fascinating.

The plot setup puts our two elderly detectives headed for a weekend conference in a borrowed van. A nasty winter blizzard on the moors traps them with a large number of other vehicles. Rescue will be a long time coming and there seems to be a serial killer running amuck through the snow. Meanwhile, back in London, the unit's pathologist is murdered within the white sterile environment of his own laboratory. The story now cycles back and forth in both "white" environments with Bryant and May trying to solve their own problems while also trying by cell phone to help the junior members of their unit back in London solve their murder. Needless to say, it turns out that there are connections between the two cases. 

As a devoted Anglophile and card-carrying senior citizen, I am particularly fond of these crotchety old detectives with their unorthodox methods and sappy humor, but this is not one of their best cases. The  "trappped in a snowstorm with a murderer" gimmick has been used more than once before and the moves back and forth from London to the moors just seem to make the book disjointed.    

My own I interest in Fowler's books started because several of them had theatrical or performance oriented situations and used a lot of London history. They had titles like Oranges and Lemons, and London Bridge is Falling Down.  I think Fowler should keep his sleuths in London. 

3 out of 5