Review - The Light in the Piazza

Last month I had the pleasure of seeing a production of The Light in the Piazza, at El Portal Theater in North Hollywood. I knew very little about the show beforehand - I’d glanced at its wikipedia page, and knew that the cast recording was highly praised.

The first thing that struck me upon entering was the small size of the theater; the circular stage was halfway surrounded by a mere three rows of seats. But I quickly learned that the small-scale sets were in no way reflective of small-scale performances.

Stephanie Wall did a great job of portraying Clara’s innocence, slowly showing more layers as time progressed, and has a beautiful voice. She is currently performing at Disneyland’s California Adventures in both High School Musical 3 and Playhouse Disney, but I’m looking forward to seeing what future theater projects she takes on.

Blake McIver Ewing had the double duty of acting as Fabrizio as well as the Executive Producer. He’s come a long way from his days as a child actor (he was Waldo in The Little Rascals, and Michelle’s friend Derek in Full House; having watched both in my childhood, I was secretly thrilled), and has a surprisingly strong voice as well.

The remaining company, including Mary Donnelly Haskell as Margaret Johnson, was well cast, with no visible weaknesses. My only, small, complaint for the production was due to how the seats surrounded the stage, sightlines couldn’t always allow for everyone to see the main action. It wasn’t often a problem for me, but the issue did come up a few times.

Despite the great cast, and beautiful songs, I left not quite sure what to think of the musical. The most climactic came near the end of act 1, and there was no real climax to lead into the end of the second act. I was left with no sense closure, and while sometimes open endings work well, in this case to me it felt more like a quick attempt to wrap things up.

Performances ran from July 10 - 26, but when I met Stephanie after the show she said they're hoping to have another run sometime in the fall, so anyone who's interested should keep an eye on the theater's website for updates. Though I wasn't satisfied with the ending, I'd still see the show again, especially if it was with this same cast.

For fun, you can watch Stephanie performing in High School Musical 2 at California Adventures here on youtube.

And you can watch Blake singing L-O-V-E in The Little Rascals here on youtube, starting at about 4:00.