For years, people have accused Stephen Sondheim of being all head and no heart. Whenever the subject of love arose, it seemed, he had difficulty hiding his skepticism. He could already see the bitter end in the rosy beginning, the inevitable disenchantment lurking under the transports of ardor. No one was cleverer at dissecting feelings. As for feeling feelings, well, presumably that just wasn't his forte.
In "Passion," however, Mr. Sondheim has dropped his defenses. With the playwright and director James Lapine, he has written an unalloyed love story, one that wants to penetrate the heart's deepest mysteries. Ironically, he has come up with his most somber musical since "Sweeney Todd." But was it supposed to be this somber? I think not.
The lovers -- Giorgio, a dashing army captain in a remote garrison in 19th-century Italy, and Fosca, the sickly and physically ill-favored woman who literally throws herself at his feet -- are unlike any who have appeared on a Broadway musical stage. While you could describe "Passion," which opened last night at the Plymouth Theater, as another Beauty and the Beast tale, there is this daring and radical difference: it's the beast (the woman), who remakes the beauty (the captain) with the unconditional force of her love.
Donna Murphy, dressed in olive drab, her face wan, her eyes feverish, is spellbinding as the wretched Fosca. Indeed, her performance is so painfully honest in its depiction of a desperate and lonely woman that there are moments when you simply have to look away. She is also more than a little scary in the role, as her need for the captain, who can barely abide her sight, grows into a voracious obsession. For much of the intermissionless evening, "Passion" dwells just this side of the macabre.
At a time when musicals are staking their reputations on extravagant scenery and head-turning special effects, you have to appreciate the composer's unremitting intelligence, his willingness to work on an intimate scale (although the heart may be the largest landscape of all), and his refusal to back off from troublesome subjects. This is his fourth collaboration with Mr. Lapine (following "Sunday in the Park With George," "Into the Woods" and the revised "Merrily We Roll Along"), and the pair have achieved an uncommonly graceful intertwining of dialogue and music.
The score contains some insinuating melodies (no titles are listed in the program) that appear to have been forged out of cries and whispers. You can hear madness in the ecstatic lilt. The sharp drum rolls that mark the soldiers' days also could be summoning distressed souls to order. Imagine "A Little Night Music" on a night the midsummer sun fails to shine and you'll have a sense of the unusual tone: romantic but with an edge.
Still, the boldness of the enterprise never quite pays off. The musical leads an audience right up to the moment of transcendence but is unable in the end to provide the lift that would elevate the material above the disturbing. In a lamentable season for original musicals, "Passion" is easily the worthiest. But its adult ambitions, more than its achievements, are what command admiration.
Admittedly, the show, which closely follows the 1981 Italian film "Passione d'Amore," is bucking some strongly entrenched myths in popular entertainment. We've long been conditioned to expect love at first sight between attractive people, and love between unattractive people on the condition that they have pleasing personalities. We're unprepared for this kind of mismatch.
"Passion" begins in Milan with the traditionally sensual depiction of love -- Giorgio (Jere Shea), naked in bed with Clara (Marin Mazzie), the luscious married woman who is his mistress -- and then proceeds to chip steadily away at that image. What captain and mistress call "so much happiness" is only skin deep, however inviting that skin may be.
Transferred to the provincial outpost where Fosca dwells, hermitlike, among a regiment of coarse soldiers, Giorgio is confronted with something he has never experienced:
Love without reason, love without mercy,
Love without pride or shame.
Love unconcerned
With being returned
-- No wisdom, no judgment
No caution, no blame.
The lyric is surely one of Mr. Sondheim's most direct and most personal. There is, you'll notice, no face-saving wordplay, none of the old corrosive irony. He wants us to believe that the love of Fosca, whole and unqualified, cracks Giorgio wide open. Wrapped up to the neck in dour gowns but exposing her profoundest emotions, she is more naked than Clara ever is on the sheets.
While Corneille would have understood the idea of a great and unyielding love forcing the object of its desires to surrender, it's not a notion the 20th century is comfortable with. Fosca, on occasion, seems to be engaging in emotional blackmail. And you can't discount Giorgio's ego either. Does he end up loving Fosca or does he love the love he's inspired in her? You will not walk away from "Passion" with a clear and exultant sense of things. The creators may want this to be an affirmative work, but the aftertaste is vaguely sour.
Yet the musical is almost always ravishing to behold. Adrianne Lobel's near-abstract sets reduce rural Italy to gorgeous planes of autumnal colors. (An endless staircase leading up to Fosca's chamber, a filmy, fluttering bedroom curtain or a long mess table are enough to specify the exact place.) Beverly Emmons's subtle lighting ranges from warm purple hazes to the silvery glints of an imminent thunderstorm. And that excellent costumer Jane Greenwood, while fully respecting the austerity of the story, has nonetheless managed to dress the performers with panache.
The production is very much dominated by Ms. Murphy, who has a lot of the Greek fury about her, albeit an ailing one. At the opposite end of the spectrum is Ms. Mazzie, glittery and golden, an alluring presence in swishing silks. As Giorgio, Mr. Shea must respond to them both, of course. From a superficial pretty boy, assured of his charms, he evolves into a sensitive man, shaken to his depths. It's a difficult transformation because he has to resist Fosca at every turn. With Mr. Lapine's guidance, Mr. Shea matures persuasively.
Gregg Edelman, as the colonel of the garrison and Fosca's cousin, and Tom Aldredge, as a grizzled doctor, serve primarily to advance the narrative, but they do so with gruff military efficiency. And in a brief flashback, Matthew Porretta stands out as the charming cad who married Fosca for her fortune, then deserted her when it ran out. All the necessary forces, in fact, have been set in motion to produce the cataclysms promised by the title. A cathartic conclusion is missing, though, and you can't help yearning for it.
In "Being Alive," the closing number from "Company," the 1970 musical that established Mr. Sondheim as the most gifted composer and lyricist of his generation, Bobby, the eternal bachelor, pleads:
Somebody need me too much,
Somebody know me too well,
Somebody pull me up short
And put me through hell and give me support
For being alive.
Nearly 25 years later, in "Passion," Giorgio gets Bobby's wish. But he doesn't seem to know exactly what to make of it.
Passion
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; book by James Lapine; based on Ettore Scola's film "Passione d'Amore". Directed by Mr. Lapine; sets by Adrianne Lobel; costumes by Jane Greenwood; lighting by Beverly Emmons; sound by Otts Munderloh; hair by Phyllis Della; musical director, Paul Gemignani; production stage manager, Beverley Randolph. Presented by the Shubert Organization, Capital Cities/ABC, Roger Berlind and Scott Rudin, by arrangement with Lincoln Center Theater. At the Plymouth Theater, 236 West 45th Street, Manhattan
