THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA

A review by Abigail Kathleen

Set in the 1950’s, The Light In The Piazza follows a wealthy mother and daughter from America, Margaret and Clara Johnson. Margaret has taken Clara to Italy for the Summer, during their stay in Florence Clara meets an enthusiastic young man, Fabrizio. In The Light In The Piazza we follow Clara and Fabrizio’s whirlwind romance, much to the worry of her mother. As a result of a childhood injury, Clara has a development disorder, meaning that she behaves much younger than she really is.

Currently at The Southbank Centre, The Light in the Piazza is a romantic musical that favours classical and operatic numbers. As the story is based in Italy a lot of the songs and dialogue is in fluent Italian, as the songs and the acts perform so superbly you do not need to understand the Italian to understand what is going on as you are able to tell from the level of emotion and movement.

I read a review whilst I was waiting for the performance to start, unfortunately it has since been removed, it stated that the set was over shadowed by a large plaster buttocks and cramped the stage. I have to disagree, Italian history is full of statues of naked men, in this production the column had a naked stone statue, the rear represented Florence and when the story had moved to Rome the statue was rotated to the front, as you can see from my photo, the column barely covers a fraction of the stage and in my own opinion it really makes the set true to it’s Italian setting.

The costumes were true to the era and the dresses Clara wore were stunning, The cast delivered a spectacular performance, very romantic, funny and tasteful. The vocals were outstanding, I sat with a smile on my face throughout the entire performance. What I really loved is that it shows that anyone can be loved for who they are, despite any disability they may have.