Dividing Day

Dividing Day

From: The Light In The Piazza
By: Guettel
Voice Type(s): Mezzo

Melody
G
Full
G

Show Synopsis:
Margaret Johnson and her daughter Clara are revisiting the sites of Clara's parents' honeymoon in Italy from America when Clara meets an Italian boy named Fabrizio. Margaret begins to reflect on how her own marriage has gone sour while she watches their love blossom, but then tries to prevent their engagement. She hides Clara's mental impairment from Fabrizio's family, who does not detect it because of the language barrier, but eventually concedes to them getting engaged because she believes Italy has made Clara more mature. Her husband opposes the engagement, and Margaret realizes that they have grown apart permanently. Fabrizio's father has to be persuaded to let his son marry a woman six year older than him, but Fabrizio and Clara become married in the end. Margaret realizes that she has believed a lot of things that are untrue about love, but Clara and Fabrizio should have a chance to be married to each other.	

Character:
Margaret Johnson, a self-assured and elegant wife and mother in her late 40s who likes being safe; very protective of Clara since she did not protect her well enough when she was a child; become stronger and more confident in herself as an individual throughout he musical.	

Song Context:
Margaret has just made an international phone call to her husband Roy and tried to tell him that Clara has met a nice boy named Fabrizio. He is very short with her and does not let her express any of her opinions on the subject. She begins to reflect on the distance and loneliness she finds in her marriage now, where and when it may have started, and who she can be outside of the context of her marriage.	

Fun Facts:
1. Victoria Clark won a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Joseph Jefferson Award for originating the role of Margaret at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and on Broadway. 
2. In an interview with Talkin' Broadway, Clark described Margaret as a woman who "can't express. She feels so much, but it's much more layered underneath." 
3. Composer Adam Guettel made his Broadway debut with The Light in the Piazza and won a Tony Award for its score and orchestrations.
    

"Dashing as the day we met, 
Only there is something I don't recognize.
Though I cannot name it yet, I know it.

Beautiful is what you are, 
Only somehow wearing a frightening disguise.
I can see the winter in your eyes, love, telling me:

?Thank you, we're done here, not much to say. 
We are together but I have had Dividing Day.?

So when, when was this day?
Was it on the church step? 
Suddenly you're out of love. 
Does it go creeping slowly? 
When was your Dividing Day?

I can see the winter in your eyes, love, telling me
?Margaret, we didn't, you curtsied, I bowed. 
We are together, but no more love, no more love allowed.?

When was dividing day?
Was it on the church step?
Did it happen right away?
Were you lying next to me, 
Hiding what you couldn't say?
How could I have guessed?
Was my cheek upon your chest?
An ocean away...

When was, when was, when was dividing day?"