Lighting Up the Flames for ‘Passion’

As the Tonys are handed out tonight, you might assume that whatever show wins the best Broadway musical trophy is bound to show up in L.A. sooner or later.

So why hasn’t Stephen Sondheim’s “Passion” ever been staged here? Not only did it win the 1994 Tony for best musical, beating “Beauty and the Beast” (which played here for 17 months), but it’s the most recent musical by America’s most honored musical theater composer--a man whose L.A. fans are legion, whose “Putting It Together” revue was a big hit here just last fall.

Granted, Sondheim usually tackles more accessible subject matter than this odd romance between an ugly, sickly, obsessed woman and a dashing 19th century Italian soldier--who’s already having an affair with a beautiful married woman. Yes, “Passion” features nudity in the first scene, but this would hardly be unprecedented for most of L.A.’s professional theaters.

The question is timely right now because “Passion” will finally be seen (or more important, heard), albeit in a staged reading instead of a full production, on Monday at the Pasadena Playhouse.

The Musical Theatre Guild, which has presented 13 one-night-only staged readings of relatively obscure musicals since 1995, is the producer.

“It’s one of the most difficult scores I’ve ever heard,” said Musical Theatre Guild co-founder Eric Andrist, speculating why no one has been passionate enough about “Passion” to produce it here.

“Most people either loved it or hated it,” said his partner Jeff Rizzo. “I was very ambivalent about it, but we picked it because it was worth doing. Some of the shows we do aren’t necessarily shows that I adore.”

Nationwide, there have been about 100 productions of “Passion,” said John Prignano, an official with Music Theatre International, which licenses the rights. But the only “Passion” in Southern California was a college production in Santa Barbara. Another college production has been slated at Santa Monica College in July. Prignano said there is no obstacle to smaller companies who might want the rights, as there sometimes is when a show’s creators wait and see whether a larger company might do their show in a given area. But, he said, “Passion” is “very adult”--eliminating it from consideration by many civic light operas--and “it doesn’t have name recognition outside theater circles.”

Or even inside certain theater circles. When James Blackman, who runs the Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities, was asked if he had ever considered “Passion,” he replied that he had not seen it, heard it nor read it.

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Still, with more than a thousand productions in L.A.’s 99-seat theaters each year, why not “Passion”? Daniel Henning said that the tiny space where his Blank Theatre Co. sometimes stages musicals would be too small. “There is a distance required for that show. To be intimate with Fosca [the obsessed woman who loves the soldier] is a difficult thing. That’s the whole point of the show.” Nevertheless, Henning said, “it’s a wonderful show.” When he saw it in New York, “I fell in love with it more and more as I walked farther away from the theater.”

It’s not surprising that the Musical Theatre Guild is doing “Passion.” The company is “the only musical theater membership company in the country,” say Andrist and Rizzo. It was born in the living rooms of its dues-paying members, who are about three dozen of the area’s leading musical theater actors, many of whom would like to play the parts in “Passion.” The guild has only 200 subscribers to please, but it does offer regular seasons--coming up next year are “Nine,” “Louisiana Purchase,” “Take Me Along” “The Baker’s Wife” and “The Rink.”

Members who are cast in any of the group’s readings are paid token fees under Actors’ Equity’s staged reading code, but the total budget for “Passion” is only in the $5,000 to $6,000 range, which is more than usual for the guild because of a sound system rented just for “Passion.”

Under Equity’s staged reading code, the company can’t require elaborate costume fittings. This should pose no obstacle for the nudity in the first scene of “Passion”--but no, don’t expect to see David Engel as the soldier and Teri Bibb as his married lover in the altogether. However, Eileen Barnett as the obsessed Fosca is planning to wear what she called “a great Olivia de Havilland in ‘Gone With the Wind’-style wig. That and thick eyebrows is almost all you need.”

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