Today is my daughter Katie’s 15th birthday, and to celebrate, I took her down to Cincinnati to see the touring production of The Light in the Piazza (today was the last day in the Queen City – from here it moves on to Florida for a few weeks, Orlando first, then Miami, then Tampa.).

My father and Hilary saw it in New York in May, right before it closed, and raved. I saw the PBS "Live from Lincoln Center" production early this summer – so when I saw that it was coming our way, and that it would be playing on Katie’s birthday – but of course – what a gift for a burgeoning Theater Girl?

She knew absolutely nothing about the show – I didn’t tell her the plot except that it was about an American woman and her daugher in Italy in the ’50’s – there are plot developments and character details I wanted her to be surprised by. I did tell her, however, that it was a musical, but the tone might sound almost operatic to her ears – that there was certainly humor, but it wasn’t exactly Guys and Dolls.

It was a wonderful production – if it comes your way – go see it. We blogged and discussed the piece in general when the PBS show aired, but I’ll just say it again – it works on so many levels, it is about so many varied dimensions of love – the various stages of romantic love, as well as the love between a parent and child, and even, if you stretch it just a little and work with the imagery of the girl’s name – Clara – the "light in the piazza" – and the settings among various pieces of religious art, and a couple of key scenes that happen to take place in churches – there is a subtle spiritual dimension here, as well – what clarifies, what sheds light, what fills us with light and opens us to possibility – or rather…Who?

It makes you just want to get on the plane and head to Italy…you know?

The performances were fine – I found Christina Andreas, who played the mother, Margaret, to be slightly more affected, less natural than Victoria Clark, who originated the role in New York and won a Tony for it, but still excellent. The non-featured players only numbered about six, I think, and they must have changed costumes every five minutes or so as they filled various scenes as priests, nuns, shopkeepers, tourists, and a prostitute or two. I found myself really wondering about the economics of these touring shows – how much does it cost to transport everything around the country and keep everyone alive and housed? How much money do they bring in? Is there actually profit to be made?

And yes, the traffic – we did okay – just okay. We got to the theater with 15 minutes to spare, although we’d reached Cincinnati plenty of time before that. I won’t go into the gorey details, but just say that besides the Bengals game, I discovered once I got there and was trying to go west through downtown that Octoberfest was taking place, and numerous streets were blocked off because of it.

Hey, Cincinnati  – IT’S NOT OCTOBER YET.

Oh, and did Katie enjoy the play? Yes, if you define "enjoy" as "wept continuously through the second act."

Which, of course, is a fairly accurate definition in the paradigm we live in when we live with some teen-aged girls…