Presented at New York Musical Festival, Lisa and Leonardo, with music by Donya
Lane, lyrics by Ed McNamee and book by McNamee, Lane and Michael Unger, has an half-baked
quality to it. This circumstance is acceptable if we are ready to look at it as
a showcase with roughly sketched out mise en scenes and some elements of scenic
design. The show definitely has some potential and I can easily imagine it
finding it’s audience in an intimate off-Broadway venue. But everybody, and
most of all the director, Michelle Tattenbaum, has a lot of work to do.
photo by Matt Montath
The
story is set in 16th century Florence with Leonardo Da Vinci in the
middle of it. Timothy John Smith portrays the Renaissance genius with humane
softness and serious ADD – the artist and inventor has trouble finishing any of
his projects. His apprentice and lover, Salai (fiery Ravi Roth), is helping
Leonardo organize his life, but the scatter-brained genius only gains focus
when Lisa (Lizzie Klemperer) enters his life. The Florentine silk merchant,
Francesco (Dennis Holland), commissions Leonardo to paint his young wife, and
so the friendship between the artist and the model begins.
During
the duets of Lisa and Leonardo, “Choose One” and “Chicken Doesn’t Fly”, I
thought to myself, what a nice solid story of friendship and creative
collaboration between a man and a woman. But to my disappointment, towards the
end of the first act the friendship quickly turned to passionate kissing on the
table and to pregnancy in the second act. This made up story of the
relationship between Leonardo and the subject of the famous painting has a
scent of the cheap dime-store novel with a tyrant husband, helpful friend,
escape and happy reunion.
There
is a second political plot line focusing on war with Pisa. Although the
connection to the romance of Lisa and Leonardo is a little loose, this parallel
story features some enjoyable characters. Every number with Isabella D’Este (comically
vain Marissa M. Miller) is a delightful and funny showstopper. With support of
her entourage and the single roll of red fabric for palace décor, Miller
created probably the most lively and consistent character in the musical.
The
scenic design by Reid Thompson, as did everything in this show, demonstrated
some interesting ideas but didn’t quite come together. Two taut strings above
the stage had interior elements hanging from them, marking different settings: a
scrap of fabric for silk merchant’s
house, sketches for Leonardo’s studio. As actors entered the stage, they pulled
the necessary part from the wings allowing for the smooth transitions without
extra people involved. I found this quite elegant and inventive, very much in
the spirit of Leonardo’s drawings.
It
seemed odd that we don’t see a single painting in a musical about a painter.
Instead, we are forced to look at two banners of a cityscape, presumably
cropped out from some picture of the period. They eat up a lot of space on the
narrow stage and although they did a simple little trick in the end, they were
very inefficient and inexpressive.
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