Theater Review: Death Takes a Holiday

Weak Book, Overwritten Score are Death of This Holiday
By Lauren Yarger
Some lovely vocals and settings (Derek McLane) highlight Roundabout Theatre's new musical adaptation of Alberto Casella's play Death Takes a Holiday, but director Doug Hughes can't resuscitate a weak plot and overwritten score that end up killing the momentum of this production.

Death (Julian Ovenden -- apparently out and being replaced by his understudy at the moment) decides he is tired of being feared by humans and wants to know about this "life" they all cling to so desperately when he comes around. It's time for a holiday, and he takes a day off at Villa Felicita in Northern Italy, the lakeside home of Duke Vittorio Lamberti (Michael Siberry), Duchess Stephanie Lamberti (Rebecca Luker) and their daughter, Grazia (Jill Paice). While Death is on holiday, no one at the villa will die, as long as Vittorio doesn't reveal the true identity of  his guest, who assumes the identity of Nickolai Sirki, a Russian prince. There, he discovers the pleasures of smelling flowers, eating eggs and love.

Grazia benefits from the arrangement when she survives unscathed after being thrown from the car her fiance Corrado Montelli (Max Von Essen) drives too recklessly. The near-death experience is a little nearer than she thinks when she meets Death himself. She rethinks her life, her engagement and becomes attracted to the strange, yet familiar Nikolai. Grazia's father, who with his wife still struggles through the grief of having lost their son, Roberto, in World War 1, isn't ready to lose Grazia to Death as well and opposes the match.

Vittorio's aging mother-in-law Contessa Evangelina (Linda Balgord) recognizes Death at once and suspects she might have to leave with him. She hasn't felt alive much any way since the death of her husband and she hasn't noticed the steadfast devotion all these years of her first and true love, Dr. Dario Albione (Simon Jones, who is fun as the character, but who has a weak singing voice). Tragedy might not be avoided when Death's true identity also is discovered by Majordomo Fidele (a miscast Don Stephenson), Grazia's best friend Dasiy Fenton (Alexandra Socha), Roberto's widow, Alice (Mara Davi),  Daisy's brother, Eric (Matt Cavenaugh), the maid (Patricia Noonan), the chauffeur (Jay Jaski) and the cook (Joy Hermalyn).

We kind of like Death -- Ovenden is dashing and has a lovely singing voice as does Paice. Vittorio and Fidele have a nice duet in "Death is in the House," Luker sings a moving ballad "Losing Roberto" and Davi shines in a bright dance with Death (Peter Pucci, choreography). These, however, are just a few of the some 24 songs comprising the score by Maury Yeston who also writes the lyrics. There are 14 tunes in the first act alone with characters singing about every situation and emotion that arises. That teamed with the overcomplicated, repetitive and laborious book by Peter Stone and Thomas Meehan starts making us wish we could take a holiday too. Catherine Zuber's period costumes disappoint as well, with strange lines that make some of them look bunched up and some colors that don't work together.

Death Takes a Holiday runs Off-Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre (111 West 46^th Street) through Sept. 4. For tickets, visit www.roundabouttheatre.org or call 212-719-1300.

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