Love In Craig Lucas's The Light In The Piazza

In Craig Lucas’s musical “The Light in the Piazza” it tells the tale of a girl, Clara, and her mother, Margaret, visiting Italy. Clara meets and falls in love with a boy around her age named Fabrizio, but her mother doesn’t think it is a good idea for them to be together due to Clara’s mental state. As the play goes on Clara and Fabrizio still want to get married. Fabrizio’s family, the Naccarelli family, also want them to get married, the only people not in agreement is Margaret and her husband, Roy. Margaret eventually gives in, seeing how happy Clara would be and knowing she would be safe with the Naccarelli family. After many twists, turns, and scene changes, the story comes with a favorable ending. Love is prominent throughout the show as it is found, grows, and gets messed with, but in the end the laws of love cannot be bent. As Clara and Fabrizio fall in love, there are numerous obstacles that could stand in their way of being together, but in the end those obstacles never stop them. The first conflict is the language barrier; Clara speaks English while Fabrizio
speaks Italian. Luckily, Fabrizio’s limited knowledge of English is enough for them to get what they’re saying across and even help one another learn the opposite language. The second obstacle is Clara’s mental state; throughout the entire play Clara’s mother, Margaret, is worried about the Naccarelli family not knowing about Clara’s situation, even though she has tried to tell them about it many times. By the end of the show Margaret realizes the Naccarelli family will give Clara the love and support she needs; she no longer has to worry about Clara’s mental state being a possible obstacle keeping the two apart. The last obstacle that just about succeeds in interfering with Clara and Fabrizio’s relationship is their age difference. No one seemed to have any issues with the two of them getting married until Signor Naccarelli saw Clara’s age on the legal documents and temporarily called off the wedding. Margaret then convinced Signor Naccarelli that the age difference barely means anything and the wedding was back on. In all of these examples, something got in the way of Clara and Fabrizio’s love; as they fought for their love, those obstacles went away. It is like a law of love, when love is present nothing can stand in it’s way especially when it is real love. Love is dominant over any other force. Aside from the main love story of Fabrizio and Clara, there are other important relationships in the musical that tie into the theme. Franca and Giuseppe are introduced dealing with their own struggles to keep their love going. Giuseppe comes home with another woman, leaving Franca upset. Later, to try to make her husband mad Franca kisses Fabrizio passionately. Clara sees this, outraged she sings a song yelling at Giuseppe and Franca telling them they are supposed to love each other, love does not work the way they seem to be going about it. The way the directors laid out the scene, they give a vision as to how a similar situation in real life would play out. The emotion in the actors’ eyes show all of the feelings of Clara whose love is accidentally almost broken and Franca and Guiseppe who just got slapped in the face with words telling them they are not loving one another which not how it’s supposed to be. In those moments the power of love is apparent, those feelings come from realizing love was being damaged, as it cannot be bent or folded. The love is present in the actions as much as it is in the dialogue and the other performance elements.
For example, when Fabrizio attempts to stand up after sitting, he struggles to get off the chair. This may be sheer clumsiness, but sometimes in the case of love clumsiness is a side effect. This case of love clumsiness is another unofficial law of love that cannot be warped. In some cases the actors would act a certain way or go to a certain spot because their characters were being driven by love. A character in specific would be Clara, at the beginning of the second act she sat on top of a rock and pounded on it with her shoe. She did this because she wanted to be with Fabrizio, but her mother was dragging her around to other places away from him. She loved Fabrizio, she was upset to not be near him, therefore her emotions controlled her actions, love being one of the controlling
emotions. Love is set in the way it works, nothing can bend it and there are no loopholes, it can only be broken or created and built up. This is present through the script and through the performance of The Light in the Piazza. Every character, every action, and every bit of dialogue show how the laws of love work and can be worked out.