Florence’s Piazza della Signoria and the Spot Where Savonarola was Executed First Published: 15 Sept 2008
We saw a play recently. It is now off Broadway in far off Vermont (The Weston Playhouse in Weston, VT to be exact) and it was absolutely wonderful. I can only imagine what the original Broadway production must have been like. Its title was “The Light in the Piazza”.
I’m no expert on the theater but with six Tony Awards to its credit, I’m in good company in thinking it was top notch.
It takes place in Florence and very briefly in Rome during the summer of 1953. An American tourist, Clara Johnson, meets and falls for young Italian, Fabrizio Naccarelli. When Clara's mother, Margaret, learns of their attraction, she opposes it for reasons that only gradually become known to the audience.
There are unique aspects to this production: it is genuinely Italian in flavor, there are multiple narrators, the score has a timeless quality that makes you tingle all over and surprisingly, at times, it uses an operatic dialog. Personally, I was in awe as if this were my first time at a stage performance.
It had all the Italian melodrama you would expect – the steadfast maintenance of ‘la bella figura’, the complexity of Italian home life, love without interest and of course, the obligatory arm waving. It is a mistake to label this confusion. This is Italy after all, albeit in the microburst fishbowl of a playhouse, where everyone does improvisation. No one believes for one minute he or she is an extra on the stage of life. Everyone's a star, no matter how modest the part. In Italy, as in a play, the show must go on!
It was on the order of an American opera although categorized technically as a musical. I mention the music because it breaks from tradition in that it is not your typical Broadway music score like ‘Oklahoma’ where you can hum a Rodgers and Hammerstein tune as you leave. It ventures into the territory of classical music, close to opera, with unexpected shifts in harmony and extended melodies. Noteworthy is the fact that the composer, Adam Guettel, is the grandson of Richard Rodgers!
The dialog is unique. Much of it was spoken or sung in Italian or broken English, since some of the characters were fluent only in Italian. The Italian mother for instance, who doesn’t speak English, comes out of character to translate the Italian for us (“Aiutami’ means help me!”), while Clara’s mother turns to us occasionally with explanatory insights and glimpses into, in her case, a life of interest without love or offers clues into Clara’s ‘special’ nature. In actuality, it is a dual story which unfolds in the piazza, lit by an awakening light, one of new love and one without. For me this dialog made the sometimes Italian, sometimes English and at times heavily Italian accented English so powerfully unique.
The sound and the words conspired to cycle my emotions from bouts of laughter only to be dashed moments later, in more moving moments, to tears.
It all comes together to really produce something of a special character; a great jumble of the unexpected!
If you would like to view snippets of the Broadway version you can find them on ‘You Tube’. Just Google on ‘Light in the Piazza, You Tube’ and enjoy your discoveries. There are many to choose from and you should listen to them all with time to get a sense of the intensely moving experience we had. I have included two here for you to quickly experience the magic:
Light in the Piazza The play’s opening sceen from the television Tony Award performance.
The Light in the Piazza - Passeggiata The late afternoon walk with the shows two young lovers, Clare and Fabrizio.
Sit at home if you’d like with a chilled bottle of Est! Est! Est! or Prosecco and imagine you are in Firenze’s famous Piazza della Signoria. Better yet, pack a few fantasies in your luggage, get yourself a ticket to Florence and experience it for yourself. Go ahead, walk in The Light of the Piazza.
Divertiti
Paolo
P.S. When you are there be sure to search out the spot in the piazza where the priest, Girolamo Savonarola (21 Sept 1452 – 23 May 1498), was first hung then burned at the stake. I did one morning at first light when the Piazza was deserted. There is a manhole sized marker to identify the spot where he and two others parished. It is at this same spot where Savonarola earlier conducted what has become known as “The Bonfire of the Vanities”..... but those were much different lights in the piazza!
In case the hyperlinks above do not work for you:
a) See “Light in the Piazza” at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ikqeG4ab3Q&eurl=http://www.vtap.com/video/Light+in+the+Piazza+Tony%2527s+performance/CL0011840940_69a447398_V0lLSTIzODM2Mzc
b) See “The Light in the Piazza – Passeggiata” at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPDoS5dQTWM&feature=related
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