STAGE WEST
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page

Theater reviews

Stage West

Passion and obsession on Hillcrest stage

1/1/2014

0 Comments

 
​Passion becomes obsession very quickly in the latest at ion theatre, and when it does, it’s scary. Not “Fatal Attraction” scary, but the kind of discomfiture that preys upon you in the darkness. The show is Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Passion, which opened on Broadway almost exactly 20 years ago and is only now making its San Diego debut. Even though Passion won the Tony for Best Musical, it’s understandable why it ran less than a year on Broadway. Though the story, set in Italy during a time of war in the late 19th century, is to some degree a standard-issue love-triangle melodrama, it is chockfull of unsettling desperation. Whatever romance is conveyed in the very opening moments – a tryst between soldier Giorgio (Jason Heil) and his married mistress (Katie Whalley) – is forgotten almost from the instant that sickly Fosca (Sandy Campbell) makes her needy presence felt. That’s when the obsession begins, and as the tale unfolds, her obsession becomes Giorgio’s as well.
            Ion Theatre has proven itself with dark musicals before – last year’s production of Grey Gardens was one of the year’s best. Sondheim’s operatic score is earnestly rendered by Passion’s large cast, under the direction of Kim Strassburger. (Piano accompaniment is provided by Mark Danisovszky.) Making her ion debut, Campbell has the meatiest role, and Fosca seems a strangely haunting bookend to another part Campbell played earlier this year, Lady Macbeth at Intrepid Shakespeare. Fosca’s is a different shade of madness, though Lapine’s narrative questions whether her condition is really starvation for love. Giorgio’s transfer of passion from his mistress Clara to Fosca is troubling but inevitable, and Heil is as steady in the role as his wide-eyed character is unsteady. Memorable among the ensemble is Ruff Yeager as Giorgio’s colonel, and Bryan Banville in dual roles as a soldier and the unscrupulous Ludovic, Fosca’s husband in a flashback.
            The production is a wearying hour and 45 minutes without intermission, and the love, or obsession, triangle does unfold more slowly than it should. But take note of the Giorgio we see when the play opens and the one on stage at the end. The price of passion will be all too clear.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    David L. Coddon is a Southern California theater critic.

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    August 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    January 2016
    January 2015
    December 2014
    January 2014
    January 2013
    January 2012
    January 2011

    Categories

    All
    Theatre Review

David Coddon

About 
David Coddon Fiction
Theatre Reviews

Support

Contact
FAQ
Terms of Use
© COPYRIGHT 2017. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page