Theater review: ‘The Light in the Piazza’ at El Portal Theatre

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“The Light in the Piazza,” which opened on Broadway in 2005, was a novel and a movie before it became a musical with a book by Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, grandson of the legendary composer Richard Rodgers.

Despite Guettel’s illustrious antecedents and a Tony win for best score, his undistinguished music slips from memory shortly after the curtain goes down on the El Portal’s current production. Still, Michiko Hill’s smooth musical direction, William Robert Ewing’s nicely downplayed staging, Patricia Jennings’ period costumes and a rich crop of accomplished performances make the experience indelible.

Leading the excellent cast is Mary Donnelly Haskell, who plays Margaret Johnson, a well-to-do Texas matron traveling in Italy in 1953 with her beautiful daughter, Clara (superb Stephanie Wall), who sustained brain damage as a child. Clara’s young Italian admirer Fabrizio (silver-voiced Blake McIver Ewing) interprets Clara’s “special” manner as enchantingly innocent, as indeed does the rest of his family. Initially intent on breaking up the young lovers, Margaret, whose own marriage is falling apart, becomes focused on keeping Clara’s “secret” until she is wed.

But not safely wed. Fabrizio’s father (Jonathan Kruger) routinely cheats on his wife (Dena Drotar), as does Fabrizio’s brother (Darius Rose) on his own tempestuous wife (Christine M. Capsuto). Pure though they are, Clara and Fabrizio are poster children for the illusory nature of love. Their bliss, we suspect, cannot last.

That’s the dark irony behind this brightly-lit “Piazza,” the shadow of impending loss that gives this deceptively sweet story unexpected sophistication and sadness.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“The Light in the Piazza,” El Portal Forum Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Ends Sunday. $30. (818) 508-4200. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

Ewing and Stephanie Wall in ‘The Light in the Piazza.’ Credit: Ed Krieger