By Andrew Gans
14 Jul 2006

Christine Andreas in The Light in the Piazza
photo by J-M Guyaux

News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage.

CHRISTINE ANDREAS

"So much being patient.
So much blind acceptance. . .
So much holding breath and keeping fingers crossed."

"Well, that's been the last 20 years," says Christine Andreas, when citing the Adam Guettel lyric from The Light in the Piazza, the powerfully moving, award-winning musical that she will bring to cities across the country during the next year. Andreas is specially suited for the role of a mother trying to protect her child while on vacation in Italy, for she, like Piazza's Margaret Johnson, is the parent of a developmentally delayed child.

In fact, during a work session while auditioning for the Guettel-Craig Lucas musical, Andreas thought, "'Are they peeking in on my life?' Because it so does embody the issues of somebody parenting a kid who is not in the loop of other kids." Andreas is mom to 19-year-old Mac, who just over a month ago began a new life in a group home. "Mac started to say to me at 17, 'I can do this. I can do that. I want to do this,'" explains the ever-youthful singing actress, "and he was indicating that he really wanted to move on and be independent. . . . And this group home opened up, and it's 15 minutes from my house, and it was perfect. Wonderful guys in the house, really cool guys with similar issues, and he's really happy. And," she adds with a laugh, "Now he'll go, 'Hi, Mom. Bye!'"

With Mac's independence, Andreas is able to tour, something the acclaimed performer has not done since the 1991 tour of My Fair Lady. "Mac was about four [at that time], and he hated it! I could no longer tour because [raising him] was the bigger job. . . [Then] this job came about. It's not a new chapter, it's a new book in my life, our lives. And it's starting with Light in the Piazza."

Andreas is currently in the midst of rehearsals with director Bartlett Sher, who was nominated for a Tony Award for his direction of the Lincoln Center Piazza and who Andreas says knows "every dot and comma [about the show]. . . [The show's creators] know every second, every nuance, every breath of what should be there. . . We started to run through it yesterday, and when you run through it and the director has told you 5,000 nuances in one scene, they all begin to make sense. It's truthful writing, meaning lyric and book, so you very happily link all the dots, connect all the dots. They've given you all the dots — it's just there's a million dots! You go on overload, and then the only way to combat overload is just to open your arms and go, 'I surrender.' I've never had a work experience like this, and I'm very grateful for it.'"

Asked whether she is being allowed to develop her own Margaret — one that differs from the version created by Victoria Clark, who originated the role to Tony-winning effect — Andreas says, "Absolutely, but you know what, at the moment, they know more than me. I know the depths of having a special kid, and they're very respectful of that. Bartlett said to me during our work session, 'Well, that's really different what you did. But you know what, you've been there. You've lived it. You just do what you got to do, and if it goes too far left or right, I'll rein it in, but you go where you got to go."

Sher has also encouraged Andreas to speak with Clark about the role, but Andreas says she wants to wait a while until she's "a little more in the rhythm of [doing the show]. Then I can have a more specific discussion." She also adds, "Vicki's worked so hard, I don't want to bother her now. I don't want to make her come back here. Let her go have a vacation in Tahiti, and then I'll talk to her!"

Margaret Johnson, Andreas believes, is one of the more complex women created for a Broadway musical in recent history, one who is waking up to painful truths about her life. "When you have a special kid — maybe when you have any kid," Andreas says, "you do live in sort of a duality. You're perceiving life for your own need, but you're really perceiving life a lot for the need of your child, and that's appropriate, but it can become like two separate lives. And, eventually, it can become more about your kid than about you. And when it becomes more about your kid than about you, suddenly the husband's taken a back seat, and all of your creativity — which everybody is entitled to — is taking a back seat. It's very painful when you kill your expression. Your expression can be anything — it can be baking — but if you kill your passion in the name of your child, you're heading down a bad road. You really are because you're killing your individuality. . . . If you're raised in any kind of religion, sacrifice is a great thing, but it doesn't work because you feel empty. [Margaret is] waking up to the emptiness of her life. That's a rough place to go, and [the creators have written] it so eloquently."

In fact, it's a role that Andreas believes can affect an audience greatly. "Bartlett actually said to me, 'If you really internalize this part and deliver it — across America basically — you will send out a message.' . . The truth is that it touches people on a very deep level. You're looking at a woman who's suddenly waking up. She realizes her life doesn't work. On the outside, it's a totally successful life, but on the inside so many things have happened. She's at a real division with her husband. She's really not awake to herself, her own feelings. . . . How many people out there could use a jolt? . . . It's a role that can really send a shockwave." Continued...

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