Ignacio Jarquin’s compelling re-creation of Italian tenor Enrico Caruso elevates this production to its towering heights.
In a less than pitch-perfect performer’s hands, this production would be a lame duck. The simplicity of the largely unidirectional narrative and the elementary language are not interesting enough to be regarded as performance poetry. The story, while fascinating as an historical perspective, lacks the punch to stand alone. Only Ignacio Jarquin’s compelling re-creation of Italian tenor Enrico Caruso elevates this production to its towering heights.
A dramatised recollection by the great tenor of his escape from the devastation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Caruso and the Quake is a solo performance by singer/performer Jarquin. Whilst his voice is certainly not on a par with Caruso’s, he performs the arias beautifully and with elegant simplicity, the tears in his eyes betraying his obvious connection to the irrepressible power of the lyric.
As an actor, Jarquin is a natural. He inhabits his role comfortably, moving between Caruso’s passionate humanity and his haughty diva persona with grace and poise. Beyond a few droplets of sweat on his brow, Jarquin shows no sign of effort, so connected is he to his resurrected idol. But this is more than mere imiation. Jarquin inhabits Caruso, making the character live by his rules, and providing a vital, breathing link between audience and narrative, a story largely unfamiliar to modern audiences, coming as it did in the infancy of the century of the Titanic, the Great Depression and two World Wars.
Through the eyes of Caruso, modern audiences have the chance to witness a humanitarian tragedy with little politicised embellishment. In many ways a simple Italian country boy, the Caruso you spend this hour with has an almost childlike naïveté which allows one to perceive the disaster in raw, largely unbiased form. Despite an unimaginative, if effective, use of language, a simplistic lighting plan (which nevertheless had a few hiccups) and straightforward staging, this production manages to spread a haunting pall of stillness, in spite of the Pleasance Above invading the space with unstifled noise.
- Jack Smith
