If a show based around love, obsession, and a spiraling descent into madness seems like an alluring night at the theater, look no further than Theater Latté Da’s newest production of the rarely mounted Sondheim-Lapin collaboration, Passion.
Set in 1860’s Italy, a young army captain, Georgio is forced to leave the woman that he has become smitten with, Clara, as he is transferred to a new posting away from home. Pining for the day when he will be allowed to return home to Clara, his plans become just dreams when he unintentionally becomes ensnared in the sights of his commanding officer’s ailing cousin, Fosca. Forcing him into a game of cat and mouse with a woman who may just be the catalyst to drive him to insanity.
While Passion was named the the winner of Best Musical in 1994 (the shortest running Best Musical winner in the American Theater Wing’s history), it is unfortunately one of the most flawed of Sondheim’s shows. This is not to insinuate that the music is not beautiful, it is just very forgettable in nature. His melodies will certainly sound very familiar to some of his other works at times but they just don’t hold the same fervor. The music feels clunky and overly heavy at times and it drags the, for lack of a better word, passion of the piece down.
Due to this fact, it puts a larger task on the director who decides to mount it in the modern era. Enter the resident artistic director of Latté Da, Justin Lucero, whose most recent credit was directing their recent production of Cinderella. Here, Lucero was able to put his spin on a show that many have not seen, let alone heard of, giving him the ability to present his vision on a nearly blank slate.
Lucero has done a fine job of adapting Passion, as best as anyone can with what Sondheim and Lapine have given them. He is not afraid to place his actors at different distances from one another to create the illusion of being separated by time and space. It is a trick that he uses quite a few times, although it begins to feel tedious at times and as if that is the only method he knows how to employ to give the audience that illusion.
Besides the physicality of the actors, the Production Team has opted to use a series of sheer curtains to help set the stage for the different locales/distances throughout the show. A beautiful choice for this particular production. The way the curtains moved and radiated with light throughout was truly a feast for the eyes. While the cast seemed to be instructed to move all the curtains at once for most of the scene changes, it felt like it would have been less showy and more thoughtful if only one or two of the curtains had moved at a time to show the passage of time or change in location. This is clearly a nit-picky note, and should certainly be taken as such because the overall effect was wonderful.
Speaking of wonderful, Erin Capello. That is all that needs to be said. Ms. Capello has brought her A-game to the role of Fosca which is no surprise because she radiates in every role she embodies. Her portrayal of a woman on the edge of sickness and madness is a wonder to behold. From the moment she steps on the stage, the audience knows exactly who this woman is and what her motivations are, namely to stay alive just long enough to experience her own version of love.
Though Fosca is a broken and fragile woman, Capello plays it with so much ferocity that we can see the fight that still lies within her to survive and carry on. It is certainly worth the price of admission alone to see her challenge the audience to determine if she is really sick or just so lost in depression and uncertainty of what love really means that she can’t seem to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
While the show itself (as written) is a bit of a mess and fails to be truly memorable, the team at Latté Da has done a fantastic job to make the evening worthy of a “date night out”, even if the story does venture into madness.
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