BWW Reviews: Gulfshore Playhouse Brings Callas to Life With MASTER CLASS

"Master Class," Terrence McNally's play about the life of opera diva Maria Callas, seems tailor-made to continue the partnership between Gulfshore Playhouse and the Naples Philharmonic. Produced by Gulfshore, performed in the Daniels Pavilion, the show combines a larger-than-life character, smart writing, lush music and operatic arias.

In hindsight, "Master Class" may have been the wrong project for Gulfshore to tackle in their Philharmonic debut. Director Kristen Coury, so good at thoughtful, nuanced plays feels unable to juggle the show's complex blend of drama, quirky humor and music while coping with the creative and technical demands of an entirely new space.

I see where Coury was going. She finds the character - and the passion for life - inside the playwright's words. Her vision of Callas is a wounded warrior forced off the battlefield, trying to prepare ignorant children for the war that is opera. Re, who started work on the role more than six months ago, plays Callas as a grizzled veteran.

It's a contemplative, introspective approach that just doesn't pan out. Coury, used to working on the cozy Norris Center stage, makes the play - and Callas - feel small and ordinary. Re never ignites in a show where she must create an incandescent persona that illuminates the entire auditorium. "Master Class" needs a DIVA - not a diva's introspection.

Coury's meticulous style, built around an exacting precision that choreographs the slightest movements on stage, runs counter to the hot-blooded passion of Callas. As much as the characters talk about passion, the show fights to conjure any trace of it.

Re delivers only during the two major scenes, monologues backed by sung arias from the real Callas, backed by that punctuate "Master Class." Here, in the show's best moments, backed by that heavenly voice, Re grabs the crowd and takes them inside the life of Callas. "Master Class" drives home what it is to love something, to adore the art of creation to strongly, so passionately, that it destroys everything else in your life.

Glenn Seven Allen gets laughs as over-eager tenor student Tony. Some of Coury's signature directing touches show in Re's playful banter with pianist Manny (an adorably goofy Charles Czarnecki). Gulfshore Playhouse intern Michael Turczyinski bids fair to steal the night as a taciturn stagehand who spars with Callas over stage niceties.

Robert F. Wolin's sleek wood paneled walls add regal presence, although the soaring columns tend to take the eye upward, away from the stage. Lighting design (Karen Spahn) seems to enclose the stage in a bubble of light, furthering the sense of isolation.

Costumer Jennifer Murray dresses Re in a black pantsuit with white trim - entirely appropriate for Callas - but the character fades into the background against the black piano, the wooden panels and the encompassing blackness of the hall. Yet again, Re as Callas seems entirely normal on stage in what amounts to "basic black," without fire or passion at all.

Chris Silk is the arts writer and theater critic for the Naples Daily News. To read the longer version of this review, go to: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2013/apr/08/review-gulfshore-playhouse-callas-master-class/.

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