Jeremy Darling, Sarah Stanbary, and Jeremy Stanbary Photo courtesy of Open Window Theatre

I apologize now to anyone who is unfamiliar with Frassati and his life, as I was, for the spoilers that lie ahead in this review. My defense is 1) the story is historical, and therefore could be easily learned by anyone stumbling upon its Wikipedia entry, and 2) the ending of his life story and its aftermath are the only reasons for his life to warrant being presented on stage. To withhold that end would be something like withholding the end of The Diary of Anne Frank.

Frassati tells the true story of Pier Giorgio Frassati. He was born in Turin at the dawn of the twentieth century, in 1901, and died just 24 years later, of polio. His wealthy family had high status in Turin, indeed throughout Italy, as his father held a seat in the Italian senate and published the nation's second largest newspaper. This afforded the young Pier Giorgio many advantages, but his deep Catholic faith led him to spurn his wealth, which he gave away to the hungry, the sick, and the homeless. He was known to give the poor the very coat off his back and shoes off his feet.

Pier Georgio came of age during The Great War and its aftermath, with unemployment and economic upheavals that sowed the seeds of extreme political movements, from fascism to communism. His "radicalism" took the form of engagement in Catholic social action organizations, such as the St. Vincent de Paul Society and Catholic Action, much to the displeasure of his family. Yet, Pier Giorgio was gregarious among his friends, and an outdoorsman who particularly loved mountaineering.

After Frassati's death, a campaign was mounted by those whom he had selflessly helped during his short life, for him to be acknowledged as a saint. That campaign opened the long process that resulted in Frassati's beatification in 1990. This summer he will be canonized as a saint. The resurrection of the play Frassati is thus timed to illuminate and celebrate his life and his vision.

Though the play, running two acts, recounts only Pier Georgio Frassati's last days, it presents a well-rounded glimpse of his life. We see him fervidly working to provide medicines, food, and clothing to a list of the needy he has been maintaining, even giving a destitute widow money to pay for the burial of her husband, and then ordering flowers to be placed on his grave. The play also depicts his enthusiasm for both the sport of mountaineering and the awe he experiences surrounded by the majesty of the mountains. Coupled with this is his devotion to friends and his capacity for playfulness, as when returning from an alpine expedition with friends, raucously laughing and singing on a train while he un-self-consciously wears a ridiculous paper hat, his penalty for having lost a bet.

We view Pier Georgio's relationship with his family, in particular his sister Luciana with whom he has a close relationship despite some marked differences in their outlooks on life. As for his unhappily married parents, we hear their disapproval of his choices through messages delivered by Luciana, and in one family dinner scene, their pre-recorded voices, unseen, mother and father coming from the two ends of a dining table while Pier Georgio and Luciana are sitting in the middle, the son making feeble excuses and promises, the daughter trying to deflect their parents' condemnation of her brother.

Jeremy Darling returns to Frassati, having created the title role in the original production, and he does a stunning job of expressing the young man's passion for serving the poor, his frenzied efforts to do more than is humanely possible to address the needs of the many dispossessed people he sees everywhere. He likewise captures the buoyancy of youth at play and with friends, his affection for his sister, his regret that the life he feels compelled to live makes him a disappointment to his parents, and, in his last moments, the agony of knowing his life's work is being cut short, even as he faces his end with faith. As Pier Georgio, Darling is almost always on stage, and his performance never falters.

Cecelia Hanson is excellent as Luciana, persuasively conveying her love for her brother and a guarded admiration for his devotion to service, even as she worries that it comes at the expense of his future prospects, and that it is a source of anguish for their parents. While our sense of his parents' concerns is that he is failing to hold up the highly vaunted family name, in spite of their protestations that they are only thinking of what's best for him, we never doubt the sincerity Hanson imbeds in her portrayal of Luciana.

The play's playwright and the production's co-director (with Stephen O'Toole) Jeremy Stanbary appears as Pier Georgio's devoted friend Marco, both in moments of buffoonery, and in the fraught final hours of Pier Georgio's life. Stanbary aptly conveys the sentiments of both. Sarah Stanbary plays Marco and Pier Georgio's friend Laura, and the Frassati's dedicated housemaid Mariscia, giving both roles their due, though neither role carries significant weight in the narrative.

Ms. Stanbary also speaks in the first of a series of individuals in dire straits, as she expresses the anguish that Pier Georgio is driven to relieve. When she, Hanson, and Stanbary appear as others in need, they are shrouded in headscarves or long cloaks to appear anonymous, and their appeals for help are silent. The play might be enriched by more dialogue between Pier Georgio and those he serves, to show him in relation to them as person to person, rather than them as the object of a mission. Similarly, the physical presence of his parents on stage in the dinner scene would be more compelling than the off-stage voices, their amplified delivery putting them at distance from, rather than in relation to their son–though, perhaps that is precisely the playwright's intent.

Stanbary's script is engaging, with lofty ideas presented through authentic conversation, lucid excursions in which Pier Georgio describes the faith that animates his mission, and dialogue that sets the context of Italy as a political hotbed, with the teeming masses caught in the crossfire. As director, Stanbary's staging is fluid, with Sue Berger's lighting design, and Nate Farley's set and costume designs creating a sense of time and place, and emotional tenor. The production uses beautifully evocative musical selections as transitions and underscoring–Stanbary is also responsible for sound design.

While Pier Georgio Frassati undoubtedly lived a virtuous–one might even say saintly–life, the premise of the play, that his undeniable compassion and generosity were directed by God, and that such faith is the only path to redeeming our fractured society (a condition that certainly has parallels with today's state of affairs) limits the appeal of the play. There is not a thing wrong with Frassati acting on his personal faith, and the immeasurable good he did in his short life is praiseworthy, even though seeking praise was never his goal. Yet, as a non-Christian, hearing the message that only through God will the troubles of this world be remedied, causes me to experience the play as an outsider. My companion at the play, who is a Christian–in fact, a Lutheran minister–also felt that the play's positive message is hemmed in by limiting the scope of those who are meant to receive it. It is no secret that adherence to faith has been a source of much good work, but it has also been the source of much harm throughout history. Likewise, much good work–and harm–has been done by individuals who do not link their actions to a religious faith.

And yet, Frassati is the true story of a man who lived, in flesh and blood, who held such faith and who credited it as the source of his good works. It is honest in telling his story and does so with grace and conviction. The fine line in such a case is between presenting one man's truth and insisting upon it.

Frassati runs through January 19, 2025, at Open Window Theatre, 5300 S Robert Trail, Inver Grove Heights MN. For tickets and information, please call 612-615-1515 or visit openwindowtheatre.org.

Playwright: Jeremy Stanbary; Director: Jeremy Stanbary and Stephen O'Toole; Set Design: Nate Farley; Costume Design: Nate Farley; Lighting Design: Sue Berger; Sound Design: Jeremy Stanbary; Props Design: Nate Farley; Projections Design: Jeremy Stanbary; Stage Manager: Caecilia Hipp.

Cast: Jeremy Darling (Pier Giorgio), Cecilia Hanson (Luciana/ensemble), Stephen O'Toole (voiceover: Father), Jeremy Stanbary (Marco/ensemble/voiceovers: Dr. Alvazzi, Journalist), Sarah Stanbary (Laura/Mariscia/ensemble). Amanda