Mumbo jumbo

>> Despite enthusiastic crowds, the new Italian Mambo feels contrived

by AMY BARRATT

One thing's for sure: Centaur, like Compagnie Jean-Duceppe before it, has a hit on its hands with Mambo Italiano. I've rarely seen an audience as jazzed as they were on opening night of Montrealer Steve Galluccio's play about coming out, Italian style. After intermission, as the lights dimmed and the music--a dance version of the old Rosemary Clooney hit "Mambo Italiano"--came up, the audience spontaneously began to clap in time. This play, which packed them in last winter in a French translation by Michel Tremblay at Duceppe, has moved beyond categorizations like "good" or "bad" into the realm of the Phenomenon.

In spite of that, and because it's my job, I gotta tell ya, it's bad. The script itself is actually much improved from the French version, but the production is egregious on many levels.

The plot, in case you haven't heard, is this: Angelo and Nino are lovers. Their parents don't know they're gay. Nino is happy to keep it that way, but Angelo dreams of getting the truth out in the open. After a pep talk from his sister, and without consulting Nino, he comes out to his parents. Operatics, naturally, ensue.

John C. Dinning must have been on drugs when he designed the set and costumes. No, he probably just gave director Gordon McCall what he asked for, so maybe McCall's the one on drugs. Perhaps it's the attempt to synthesise the Italian and gay sensibilities that creates an effect not unlike the interior of an adult cinema. Nino's mother Lina (Penny Mancuso) dresses like a putana, while Angelo (Hawaiian shirts) and Anna (floral housedresses) both look like they were dressed by the Goodwill. It's a colourful show; I'll give it that.

The biggest change to the text is the cutting of a superfluous dream character, Angela, who represented Angelo's feminine side. A few of Angela's lines have been transferred to the sister, Anna (Ellen David), and voilà, she is not missed in the least. (I am told that McCall requested significant cuts from Galluccio, so that is to his credit).

Galluccio has created some memorable caricatures, particularly among the older generation. Mancuso and Mary Long, who plays Angelo's mother, have the body language down cold, and they get a lot of laughs. Long and Michel Perron, as Angelo's father, put on accents as thick as Mama's tomato sauce but not as authentic. Suzanna Le Nir, as Pina, an old schoolmate of the boys, is working too hard to sound like St-Leonard. Giuseppe Gallaccio, as Nino, speaks like someone who worked hard to get the North End out of his accent and is damned if he's going to let it creep back in even if he is playing an Italian character.

Andreas Apergis returns in his second gay role in a row at Centaur (he was the father's boyfriend in Trick or Treat last spring). Annoying as it is, the text supports Apergis' reading of Angelo as effeminate and whiny.

Although the production is exquisitely bad right through, the text only achieves that mark right at the end. Angelo, abandoned by Nino, decides to take another huge step out of the closet and march in the Gay Pride parade. His speech, delivered directly to the audience, goes, I swear to God, like this: "On that day, I was on my way. I was gay and I was on my way, on that day..." Which begs the question: Was he gay on a boat, was he gay with a goat?

Mambo Italiano at Centaur Theatre, unil Oct. 21, 288-3161