Reviewed Saturday 15th February 2014
Stephen Sondheim's musical,
Passion, with a book by
James Lapine,opened on Broadway in 1994, almost exactly twenty years ago. It was based on
Ettore Scola's film,
Passione d'Amore, in turn adapted from
Fosca, a novel by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti, based on an affair that he had with an epileptic woman while he was a soldier. Although Passion won several Tony Awards, transferred to London, and has had a few revivals, it is not amongst his best known and regularly performed works. It has taken twenty years to reach Adelaide for this short season by Swell Productions.
Swell Productions has been responsible for presenting Sondheim's works before, with great acclaim in particular for their production of
Sunday in the Park with George which, as it happened, was also presented in Adelaide for the first time by this group, and also twenty years after it first opened.
In Milan, in 1863, Giorgio Bachetti, a captain in the Italian army, and the beautiful Clara, have met by chance and begun an affair, and the piece begins with them expressing their love for each other as they relax in bed. Things sour quickly, when he explains that he has been transferred to a remote military outpost. There he is surrounded by other officers, the only woman being the very ill and very plain, Fosca, a relative of the head of the outpost, Colonel Ricci. To his horror, she falls in love with him and pursues him relentlessly. Today we would call her a stalker.
Giorgio and Clara maintain a daily correspondence with one another, telling of their mutual love, and hatred of being separated. As Fosca pursues him, Giorgio begins to write to Clara of this wretched woman and his distaste for her. He contrives a reason to take leave to be with Clara, so painful is it for them to be apart. Fosca, however, even knowing of his love for Clara, refuses to leave him alone. Apart from taking his men on patrol during the day, there is no escape him in this otherwise closed community, where the men eat and take their relaxation together, basically drinking and playing cards, confined in the barracks, where Fosca also lives. For the rest of this tragic tale, you will need to attend a performance at the State Opera Studio.
Director and designer, Patrick Jeremy, takes the role of Giorgio, with
Eleanor Blythman as Clara, and Michaela Burger as Fosca. Blythman is well known to local and international audiences for the many roles that she has sung in operas and musicals, and is always a welcome sight when performing in Adelaide. She brings considerable charm and joy to the role of Clara, in an exuberant performance that demonstrates why Giorgio has fallen for her. Jeremy, in turn, reacts to her performance, giving us a love struck young man, lost in the heady whirl of his infatuation with her. His reaction to Fosca's advances are a complete contrast, beginning by simply telling her that he is not interested, and gradually losing control under the pressure.
Burger gives a standout performance in the role of Fosca, a difficult role in which audiences have so often found nothing to like in the character, which is probably the main reason that this work is not one of Sondheim's best known. Burger's fresh and multi-faceted interpretation, however, differs from many, in that she finds a few threads that generate scraps of sympathy, then gradually draws them together so that we see more of this character than is displayed on the surface and she moves us from sympathy to empathy and understanding, which then brings a congruity to the final scenes that is usually missing, even in the original Broadway production.
The other officers, James Spargo, Henry Arrowsmith,
John Greene, Joshua Penley, Macintyre Howie Reeves, Hew Wagner, and Jason Bensen, each have individual characters to portray, but also act as a male voice chorus, giving some fine harmonies. Lyn Harris and Michelle Nightingale complete the cast in brief appearances as Fosca's mother, and a former mistress of the man who married and then deserted Fosca.
To one side sits a small chamber orchestra of fine musicians, conducted from the piano by Musical Director, Heather Elliott, to the other side, on a raised platform, is a small bed, and across the stage runs a high catwalk. This minimal set, with backdrops, serves as all of the locations, helped with some effective lighting by Marie Docking.
This is a most enjoyable production, and an opportunity to see this musical for the first time. Nobody can tell when this show might be seen in Adelaide again, so make the most of this chance.
