ELIZABETH STREET

Laura Fabiano’s heroine—and she really is one—is Giovanna Costa, a midwife from a tiny fishing village on the Straits of Messina. In Italy or on Elizabeth Street in New York’s Little Italy, where Giovanna arrives as a bereft young widow to discover how her adored husband was killed, midwives are believed to traffic in the supernatural. I’m not sure that Angela Dawe isn’t doing the same, so amazingly supple and effective is her performance of a huge range of characters in this gripping story of immigrant America. Dawe’s voice is lovely, and she can do anything with it—compress it, gravel it, raise or lower the pitch, be 3 years old or 80. A rich, artful story with a performance to match. B.G. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2012]