The Light in the Piazza
Aug 2nd, 2006 by Ashley
Listen to the Original Cast Recording
Spontaneity can sometimes bring you bigger surprise than you expected, while well-preparation keeps you from unexpected hindrance on the way.
If you can still recall, I listened to The Light in the Piazza soundtrack for the second time on Monday evening, which aroused my interest in the musical and therefore went looking for SF show info, and luckily, I got a email from SHNSF saying all seats for preview show on 8/1 would be $45. I searched for available seats, and 2 pretty good center orchestra seats turned out. I called chun immediately and the next thing I knew, I was booking the tickets. (I’ll skip the process where we debated whether we should buy tickets from craiglists and are we really going to watch another “first show”?)
I wasn’t going to see the show when I first learned that it will be on during Aug, cuz for all I knew back then, it’s just a love story takes place in Italy and they assembled the cast in a real short time, which indicated a good chance that the performance will not be superb. But as my curiousity towards the show increased and that low price ticket for excellent seat looked so tempting, I decided to go. Plus, going to the show saved me from struggling whether I should go to LA this weekend, cuz I used my travel budget for musical. Sorry, Greg. (and Ronaldinho and Eider.)
It turned out to be spetacular. Though we did miss the first 15 minutes because of BART delay, darn. The singing was beautiful (except Frabrizio’s second song. And come on, you were in the orginal cast. What’s the matter with you?) and we were instantly amazed by the sets. HOW LONG IT HAS BEEN SINCE WE LAST SAW A EXTRAVAGANT SET? For the past 6 months or so, we saw The 25th Annul Putnam County Spelling Bee, Death of a Salesman, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Urinetown and A Chorus Line. Almost all of them were one set from start to end, if you count moving stairs (Urinetown) and switching mirrors (A Chorus Line) as changing sets, well. The story was simple and sweet with delicate details and gently exaggerated Italiano expression. I particularly love the preformance of Meg Johnson. Though in the poster she looks as if she were a passerby, merely a mother companied her daughter, Clara, who fell in love in the foreign city. But no, she was actually the center of the story. How she protected her daughter and how the love once she had had faded away. And through the somewhat operatic music and refreshing melody, the truth about Clara was revealed subtly. What a grand enjoyment.