What's opera, Doc?

>> Cartoonish Mambo is not ready for Duceppe

by AMY BARRATT

An Italian friend once summed up his family: everything's an opera with them. It's an apt description of the family in Steve Galluccio's Mambo Italiano, now playing at Salle Jean-Duceppe. To call the characters themselves, and especially the actors playing them, "larger than life" is a huge understatement. There is so much mugging and flailing, and the stage itself is so oversized, that they might as well be singing opera--it would probably work better.

The hall, as no critic can fail to mention, is horrible: two football fields wide and deceptively deep. When the curtain opens you're shocked to see actors the size of G.I. Joes. No wonder they're gesticulating their heads off, it's the only way to play to the back row. The company consistently programs the wrong kind of plays for such a space. Robert Lepage or Dominic Champagne's big visual works would have a prayer on that stage, but I guess Duceppe feels anything that "experimental" wouldn't fly with their subscribers. Apparently they want sitcoms and kitchen-sink dramas, even though it's been proven over and over that those plays get swallowed whole in the space.

The grey flats of Marcel Dauphinais' set have all the charm of office dividers. Instead of trying to pretend all that space isn't there, he and lighting designer Luc Prairie should be trying to fill it with warmth and colour.

Since Michel Tremblay did the English-to-French translation, and (at least according to Galluccio) some people at Duceppe initially thought Tremblay had written the play, I was looking for Tremblay influences. Apart from one very strong scene of family confrontation at the end of act one, you'd have to be a dunce to mistake Mambo Italiano for a Tremblay play. First of all, Tremblay prides himself on never having written "kitchen-sink" realism. There is one magical realist element in Mambo--an apparition named Angela who claims to be the feminine side of the protagonist, Angelo--but it is so awkwardly handled that it would be better left out. (Mireille Deyglun is as good as she could possibly be in such an impossible role.)

If Galluccio needs to have someone say the things Angela says to Angelo, he could give most of the lines to Adèle Reinhardt, who plays his sister, Anna. As it stands, this is another thankless role: Anna does nothing but whine and pop prescription drugs. Or keep the character of Angela, but have Angelo meet her out in the world instead of having her appear in his apartment like I Dream of Jeannie. She could claim they went to school together and only at the end would there be some question as to whether she was ever really there. Or maybe she's the ghost of his dear departed Aunt Iolanda. Use your imagination! Anything but "I'm your feminine side!"

The other biggest problem with the play is its length. Try as you might to make it into an opera, Mambo Italiano is just a coming out story. Although exiting the closet always seems earth-shaking to the person doing it (remember Ellen?), most of us are over it before we walk into the theatre. I'm happy to see gay characters on stage and gay playwrights produced, but they don't have any more right than anyone else to be self-indulgent.

With at least 45 minutes trimmed and a more intimate production--anywhere but Duceppe--Mambo Italiano could still be a diverting, even touching evening at the theatre.

Mambo Italiano runs to Feb. 3 in Salle Jean-Duceppe of Place des Arts, $22-38, 842-2112