Woolly closes its distinctly uneven season with the sound Botticelli in the Fire, a fantasia on the life of 15th-century Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. In Jordan Tannahill’s reimagining, Botticelli (company rising star Jon Hudson Odom) is rampantly bisexual, carrying on with both his patron’s wife and a young gifted painter from Vinci named Leonardo. Sumptuous period costumes intermingle with overt anachronisms—text messages, peanut butter sandwiches.
Cody Nickell is well placed as the rich and powerful Lorenzo de’ Medici, while Craig Wallace is even more powerful as Girolamo Savonarola, imagined here as a street preacher elevated to savior of Florence, from the twin depredations of plague and licentiousness. Indeed, the power games played by both characters have unsettling resonances with current events.
Forced by Savonarola to choose between art and love, Botticelli makes the expected choice. But there’s something missing here, in the text or elsewhere: Leonardo is young and beautiful and talented, granted, but his gift seems insufficient motivation for Botticelli’s sacrifice.
Christian Frederickson’s excellent sound design is matched by Colin K. Bills’ chiaroscuro lighting.
- Botticelli in the Fire, by Jordan Tannahill, directed by Marti Lyons, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington