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There’s a little too much mugging, italicizing and elbow-nudging, as if we might not be able to enjoy Sondheim’s unsparing wit on our own.

The ensemble recreates the communal energy of the characters, though sometimes what’s italicized in the script might have been more potently conveyed with underplaying.

In a startlingly modern conception, the negative space of Claudel’s abrupt amputation exposes — and italicizes — the human body’s dense, inescapable physicality.

It had a blue cover, she said, and was unmarked except for “cuaderno de trabajo” written in the italicized superscript taught in elementary schools around Mexico.

Jon Balke’s score is a spare accompaniment that knows when to italicize the unease and when to color in the serenity.