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FLOWER SONG

Having grown up on Staten Island, I’m delighted to hear that the Snug Harbor Cultural Center is finally kicking into high gear with a production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Fiorello!, set for a run in the 700-seat Music Hall there from January 23 through February 8.

Appearing in the title role is Tony Lo Bianco, the wonderful dramatic actor who previously played former New York City mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia in the one-man Broadway show Hizzoner (1989). “It was a real pleasure to do that show,” LoBianco tells me, “because we got to put out there to the audience what LaGuardia meant to this city. He did everything you could imagine in 12 years as mayor: the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel, the Queens-Midtown tunnel, the West Side Highway, the East River Drive, the City Center. His birthday just passed — December 11 — and it sort of went unnoticed, which is terrible. Here’s a man who should certainly be recognized and praised.

“It’s interesting to compare Fiorello with Rudolph Giuliani,” Lo Bianco remarks. “Rudy beat David Dinkins the second time he ran against him in a heavily Democratic city, but he only beat him by two or three points. His method was to do things his way; he managed to anger everybody but the result is what counts. It was the same thing with LaGuardia: When he became mayor, the first thing he did was to order the arrest of Lucky Luciano. He wasn’t afraid to face a lot of political fire from all sides. He was for the people, and they loved him. Here he was, this Little Italian fellow — which, in those days, was not a very popular nationality to be. New York politics was dominantly Irish back then, with Jimmy Walker and Tammany Hall and so forth. When LaGuardia came along, no one even knew how to spell his name!”

I ask Lo Biano how much professional singing experience he has, and he cheerfully replies, “None! But I love a challenge. I’m having a great time and we’ll see how it comes out. I’m also enjoying rehearsals because I feel like I’m helping some of the kids in the production; I guess I’m a natural teacher. The cast is Equity and non-Equity, and it’s a joy to watch these young actors grow and learn something from the experience — as I am.”

Lo Bianco didn’t see the original Broadway staging of Fiorello! but he caught up with the show in an Equity Library Theater revival in the ’80s. “The production didn’t impress me that much,” he says, “but the songs are just spectacular. Some of them are so beautiful and touching. The show was written with such skill and knowledge,” he says of the Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick-George Abbott-Jerome Weidman musical about the man who was called “The Little Flower.” Lo Bianco is also looking forward to performing in the newly renovated Music Hall at Snug Harbor, a complex of beautiful Greek Revival buildings that was originally constructed as a home for “aged and decreptic seamen” in the late 19th century.

“They won’t be totally finished with the renovation by the time we open,” he tells me, “but they’re doing a wonderful job. I got involved in the show because I met and talked with [Staten Island politico] Ralph Lamberti at a lot of charity events. He always said he wanted me to come down to the theater and get involved, so when this production came up and I heard that the theater was going to be named after him, that gave me two reasons to do it. This is a great adventure for me.”

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FOA NOW

I got to see Barrett Foa’s recent Broadway turn in Avenue Q, and he was mightily impressive. I’ve interviewed Foa in connection with his appearances as Jesus in Godspell Off-Broadway and as Mordred in Camelot at the Paper Mill Playhouse; he was terrific in those shows, and some of you may also know him for his recent Off-Off-Broadway role in Cupid and Psyche.

In Avenue Q, Foa played Princeton and Rod for a week while John Tartaglia was on vacation, and the audience at the Golden Theatre on the evening of Wednesday, January 14 gave him the kind of ovation that marks him as a rising star. The performance was extra impressive in that, until Foa began rehearsing a few weeks earlier, he had never operated a puppet on stage — and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that to do so is much harder than it looks. To my eyes, he handled the puppets with nearly as much facility as that displayed by co-stars Rick Lyon, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, and Jennifer Barnhart, all of whom have years of experience in this difficult art form.

The house was packed on the night I attended, and I spotted such notables as Mandy Patinkin and Bob Balaban in the audience. I wouldn’t be surprised if Foa takes over the role full-time when and if Tartaglia leaves the production, but even if that doesn’t happen, this should be a major career boost for him. Tartaglia is so great (and so Tony Award-worthy) in Avenue Q that the producers must have been very concerned about finding a suitable understudy; bravo to them for giving Foa the chance.

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TURN IT DOWN!

Seeing Avenue Q again, I was struck by the fact that it’s one of the few current Broadway musicals that isn’t ridiculously overamplified. Never Gonna Dance also has a reasonable volume level, but just about every other Broadway tuner I can think of — from Wicked to The Boy From Oz to Taboo — is far louder than it needs to be. Mamma Mia! is one of the worst offenders, but even Wonderful Town sounds overbearing when those on-stage trumpets really get to blaring in the “Conga” number. Oh, and you can add the Off-Broadway show Fame to the list of L-O-U-D.

Nor is this disturbing phenomenon limited to musicals. You’d hardly expect your ears to be assaulted at Golda’s Balcony, would you? The one-woman show is performed in the intimate Helen Hayes Theatre, and the voice of star Tovah Feldshuh is not heavily amplified — but, at certain points, William Gibson’s play calls for the recorded sounds of fighter planes and other war-related noises. I can’t begin to tell you how loudly these effects are presented to the audience by sound designer Mark Bennett; suffice it to say that, when I saw the show, the man seated in front of me visibly flinched at the sound of one especially terrifying explosion.

There are several reasons why these shows are so loud. First of all, many productions these days feature huge, elaborate sets that make a considerable amount of noise when they move — and I’m told that certain types of state-of-the-art lighting equipment are also noisy while in operation. Obviously, this has to be masked; but do the sounds of the singers and the orchestra have to be cranked to an ear-splitting level in order to do so?

In some cases, shows are overamplified out of sheer desperation. It can’t be a coincidence that one of the loudest Broadway musicals I ever saw was the execrable Dance of the Vampires. I’ll never forget how, at the performance I attended, there was a tremendous “THUD!” toward the end of the show as the sound system cut out entirely. For a few moments, one of the big production numbers proceeded with no amplification whatsoever, making it crystal clear that all of the show’s sound and fury signified nothing.

The main issue is that, over the years, the general public has lost the ability to listen as closely and attentively as it used to. Having built up a tolerance for the blaring sounds of rock concerts, action movies, high-wattage home audio systems, etc., many people want their shows loud — or, at least, they think they do. This is a vicious cycle, of course: Assaulted by overamplified musicals (and plays), theatergoers have their ability to listen compromised further, which results in even more amplification…and so on.

It would be useless to call for a return to the level of sound amplification that was heard on Broadway in the 1950s. That ain’t gonna happen for a number of reasons — some of them good and some of them bad. But couldn’t they turn it down? Please?!