It's 1906 and Enrico Caruso is trapped in San Francisco after an earthquake has reduced much of the town to rubble. Robbed of the trappings such as fur coats, expensive costumes, orchestras, recognition and idolation which the singer uses to boost his ego, he is faced with having to meet new challenges - the play takes us through this journey of self-discovery over the period of around 48 hours.

In this one-man show by Andrew Marshall, Caruso's emotional journey is charted admirably - with twists and turns which demand a virtuosic delivery, virtuosic acting, flawless operatic singing with a style, presence and voice to match Caruso's and the abiility to change swiftly from one character to another while maintaining an illusion of seamless flowing narrative.

 

Ignacio Jarquin largely manages to achieve this ... with limits, the major ones being a lack of attention to detail in terms of Italian pronunciation (double consants were sounded as singles and vice versa throughout, for example). Opportunities for using accents to give body to characters (the English valet, the American carriage driver) were missed and the play's fine ending could have been truncated by a few paragraphs to give a more powerful ending.

 

All this would have not been so much of an issue had the sung parts of the narrative (which were too few, most lasting slightly too long and coming too late into the start of the show) been accompanied by an appropriate backing track. The selections themselves raised unanswered questions - chosen perhaps for the words, but jarring in terms of the mismatch of contexts from which they were lifted. As it is, the a capella delivery made for one or two intonation problems which could have easily been avoided, and the support would have enabled Mr Jarquin to really show what his voice is capable of.