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Arias for the Mundane

nytheatre.com review by Ross Peabody
August 15, 2005

I wake up early in the morning to the sound of my coffee maker. I drink my coffee and contemplate the fact that, with so many options out there, I only drink Maxwell House. I get my mail. There are only bills. I go to work. I work. I daydream about having a different job. I leave work. I come home to set the coffee pot to wake me up in the morning. I love my coffee pot. It gives me the most pleasure in my life. I go to bed to do it all again in the morning. So simple. So mundane.This is the content of the three arias that make up Arias For the Mundane, the diverting and whimsical new play written and performed by James Junio. On the surface, and aptly billed as a one-man mini-opera, Arias for the Mundane sounds fairly lacking. Take into account now, that these three arias (about ten minutes long, altogether) are sung completely in Italian and that James Junio has a fantastic tenor.When a performer of the caliber of Junio takes on such mundane and potentially silly material, he does what any great performer should do. He dives in, goes all the way and never winks at the audience knowingly. Lacking in any self referential irony, the tedium of daily life set to music inspired by Mozart and Puccini takes on a particularly active malaise, and Junio milks it for all its comic potential.The three arias are repeated a second time, only slightly altered. When the cylce begins for a third time, just when you’re prepared to jump up and scream “OKAY, I GET THE POINT,” Junio’s sad little office fellow receives an art test in the mail (remember those, with the turtle or the pirate for you to draw?) that inspires the dreamer in him, and shakes up his daily life. Suddenly making declarations in English as he imagines a glorious life as an art student, he is kept in line by his accompanist Jenny Washburn, who refuses to let him escape from the arias, the job, and the Italian. By the fourth reprise, he’s singing arias to Mr. Turtle instead of his coffeepot, and despite the blatant silliness of it, I’m laughing and rooting for the poor sap. It’s to Junio’s credit that he never lets these changes to character and story veer too far from the strict structure of the arias, and thus never allows the play to become indulgent.Melanie T. Morgan’s tight and specific direction keeps the energy from lagging, and she always has a little gag in her pocket. The costumes and lighting, by Merideth Leigh Beckert and Erin Delaney, respectively, are pitch perfect, and the set, as defined by Morgan’s direction, takes on life in all of the locales it must portray.I have to also give particular praise to Washburn. As an accompanist, she is fine, but as an actress, her accompanist character, with all of the attendant frills and flares of a huge opera hall, takes herself so seriously that watching her grumble, glare, and pout at her piano as her ward stops singing in Italian to go to art school and sing in English lends the final element to a thankfully short, but otherwise pleasingly satisfying little play.