Theater Latte Da's 'Passion' has great music, but OK staging

Review: Theater Latte Da's 'Passion' has great music, but OK staging

Director Justin Lucero shows his operatic proclivities, and also his shortcomings.

By Rohan Preston Star Tribune

June 9, 2025 — 4:00pm

Is love enough to heal the sick?

"Passion" offers an answer with palpable emotion. The Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine work, which opened Saturday, is only the second show that Justin Lucero has staged since becoming artistic director of Theater Latte Da.

But like the spunky "Cinderella" that he mounted last fall, the one-act gives us glimpses of what may be essential elements of his directorial ambition and style.

"Passion" is really a chamber opera that, like all Sondheim shows, lives in the world of musical theater. Lucero leans heavily on an operatic playbook, coloring the music brightly and, yes, with roiling intensity.

Guided by music director Jason Hansen, the production is expertly conducted and well-sung. Isa Condo-Olvera, Dylan Frederick and Erin Capello deliver magnificently as the principal characters in an unusual, fateful love triangle.

They lead a cast, including a robust Greek chorus of military men that Emily Michaels King has choreographed with rhythmic precision, which expertly captures the churning feelings in this story of keening obsession.

The challenge for Lucero is one of balance. The vocal richness is not always matched by a similarly robust and expansive theatricality. In fact, the action sometimes feels like the actors have been planted onstage mostly to deliver their musical numbers.

And while their voices do carry powerfully and palpably, that choice also unwittingly leads to a sense of inertia from time to time so that even parts of the story that are brisk and brusque come off as slow.

Sondheim and Lapine adapted "Passion" from Ettore Scola's 1981 film "Passione d'Amore." The narrative centers on Giorgio (Frederick), a handsome captain in the Italian army who is having an affair with Clara (Condo-Olvera).

After he is suddenly transferred to a godforsaken base where nothing grows, he becomes the object of desire for Fosca (Capello), the only cousin of his superior officer Colonel Ricci (Eric Morris).

Sickly and given to bouts of wrenching pain, Fosca has never known love. In fact, we hear her horrible cries long before we meet her. But Fosca takes a liking to Giorgio, urging him to love her out of compassion that she hopes will turn to passion before her soul fades.

Lucero interlaces not just of voices but of airs and lives. That's especially true of "Garden Sequence," a beautiful, tense number where the lovers cross each other as tensions rise from all parts of the triangle.

If Frederick, a Broadway actor, seems occasionally dim next to his co-stars, it's probably because they shine so brightly. Dressed in an amber brown gown that seems like a big bubble, Condo-Olvera gives a revelatory performance. Her "Three Weeks" is full of heart and experience.

Capello displays similar excellence, with "No One Has Ever Loved Me" proving to be especially moving.

There are also striking moments from Bradley Greenwald as the deadpan Doctor, and Morris as the aggrieved Ricci.

Paul Whitaker's set and lighting designs help to give the characters a lightness. The show uses three layers of scrims to create playing realms. The scrims, which look like mosquito netting, also offer flimsy protection for their intimacies.

They are all conducting their affairs in private, or so they believe, unaware that their hearts and weaknesses are visible to all.