Last week we say the touring production of “Light in the Piazza” in San Francisco. It is a new musical by Adam Guettel (grandson of Richard Rodgers) and Craig Lucas, that is based on the novel by Elizabeth Spencer. It is a story of a Florentine holiday romance between an American girl with limited mental capacities and the ardent young Italian man she meets. The girl’s mother puts her trust in the miracle of young love even as she faces the truth about her own marriage. It is very light, delicate, romantic story. A number of the songs are sung in Italian and several of the characters speak only fluent Italian. 
I was a little concerned that the two teenagers were not going to have the patience to sit through a lush, romantic story. Not to worry, they were hooked right from the beginning. We were all breathless on the edge of our seats at the end of the first act when passionate Italian boy, Fabrizio (played wonderfully by David Burnham), takes off his shirt and woos the American girl, Clara. The girls behind us were also audibly stunned in the second act when Clara’s mother has a passionate kiss and embrace with Fabrizio’s father. I could hear their brain cells exploding as they tried to grasp the concept that a mother could have sexual feelings with someone other than her husband. It was a very enjoyable show.
2 comments:
congrats on the marriage! i have a striaght friend in the marina who rushed to city hall with his son and threw rice as each couple emgerged from city hall when the major opened the door to gay marriage in 2005.
http://the-fourhorsemen.spaces.live.com/
Your story reminds me of a friend of mine who sat in front of two teenaged girls at a production of Romeo and Juliet and realized while listening to their conversation at intermission that they didn't realize the couple died at the end... It added a freshness to his own experience as this group seemed to add to yours...
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