STAGE REVIEW : ‘Caruso’ More of a Showcase Than a Play

“Your life is not scripted by some second-rate librettist,” Enrico Caruso is told in “Caruso,” at CalRep in Long Beach.

Howard Burman was asking for trouble when he wrote that line. “Caruso” too often plays as if it were scripted by such a librettist.

While the play isn’t as much of a fantasy as the 1951 MGM movie “The Great Caruso,” it isn’t as smoothly assembled either.

It tries to cover too much time--1885-1901 before intermission and 1916-21 afterward--yet inexplicably omits Caruso’s years of greatest glory in between, when he conquered the opera capitals of the world.

It plants such stilted language in the mouths of Caruso’s siblings that one somber pronouncement, near the beginning of the play, drew snickers from the presumably friendly opening-night crowd. The line was later repeated.

The siblings are important here. Burman dwells on the sacrifice Caruso’s younger brother Giovanni made by taking Enrico’s place in the army, allowing Enrico to pursue his singing. Enrico’s sister tries to make Caruso feel guilty about this, apparently with some success--and the last we hear about Giovanni is that soldiers in his unit were lost in battle.

In fact, Giovanni outlived Enrico, and lived primarily off Enrico’s income--according to a recently published memoir by Enrico Caruso Jr. Burman’s implied thesis--that the memory of Giovanni’s original gesture was what compelled Enrico to the top--is shaky. And even if you grant him his thesis, the fraternal relationship is still presented too sketchily--as is nearly everything in the play, except the sound of tenor Jonathan Mack, playing Caruso.

“Caruso” is actually a concert, badly disguised as a play, rather than a play with music. It serves as a showcase for Mack, not as an examination of Caruso.

Mack certainly deserves a showcase. His voice is a splendid instrument, on its own terms, but it’s not as big as Caruso’s. For that matter, could any tenor live up to the reputation of Caruso? It’s difficult to bridge the gap between “splendid” and “sublime.”

Mack doesn’t look much like Caruso, either. He does manage a serviceable Italian accent.

Ronald Allan Lindblom’s staging is rudimentary, but Michael Carson’s musical direction and piano accompaniment are graceful additions to the evening.

The cast is surprisingly large, considering how little most of them do. Besides Mack, the only ones who make much of an impression are Anne Goodale--a lustrous Mimi from “La Boheme” in the show’s most extended musical selection; John Ross Clark as George M. Cohan, who teaches Caruso how to sing “Over There” in a cute but dramaturgically expendable novelty number; and Mike Nichols as Caruso’s straight-shooting chauffeur in his declining years.

Those final years are depicted with a degree of artistry missing from most of the play. But some major restructuring would be required for “Caruso” to have a future.