One look at the set for \u201cItalian American Reconciliation\u201d and you may form an opinion as to just what kind of production this is.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like \u2018Tony n\u2019 Tina\u2019s Wedding,<\/a>\u2019\u00a0\u201d one man said, as he took his seat at the\u00a0Long Wharf Theater<\/a>\u2019s Mainstage, referring to the interactive play that ran in New York for more than two decades. At intermission, the same man, making a more personal connection, said, \u201cIt looks like Uncle Frank\u2019s catering hall in Staten Island.\u201d<\/p>\n Actually, Scott Bradley\u2019s scenic design is inspired. The play,\u00a0John Patrick Shanley\u2019s<\/a>\u00a01988 operatic comic romance, takes place in various settings, including a luncheonette and a woman\u2019s backyard. But the scenes are all played in what looks like the aftermath of a large, rowdy wedding reception. Surrounded by round tables littered with empty bottles, half-drunk glasses of red wine, used napkins and leftover balloons, the five characters in \u201cItalian American Reconciliation<\/a>\u201d enact a story as emotionally heightened as an expensive, microplanned family celebration and as sad as the morning after.<\/p>\n Our personable, funny narrator and star is Aldo Scalicki (John Procaccino<\/a>), a bachelor who might be at home on the reality show \u201cJersey Shore,\u201d if he had a tan. Aldo\u2019s best friend is the skinny, angst-ridden Huey Maximilian Bonfigliano (Michael Crane).<\/p>\n Huey has romantic problems. It has been three years since he and Janice (Lisa Birnbaum) divorced, but he wants to win her back, he says. Aldo thinks this is a misguided plan, because Huey is now with a wonderful woman, Teresa (the female characters have no last names), played by Stephanie DiMaggio. Teresa doesn\u2019t deserve to be hurt. To complicate things, Aldo himself may be attracted to Janice.<\/p>\n Playing something like a\u00a0Cyrano<\/a>\u00a0or a\u00a0John Alden<\/a>, Aldo speaks to Janice to persuade her to give her former husband another chance. Their encounter is played as something of a balcony scene, with Janice standing on one of the higher steps of a very tall ladder. She is a tough woman, but what Teresa says about her (\u201cShe should live on a black mountain and drink out of a skull\u201d) seems unjustified. Janice does, however, admit to killing Huey\u2019s dog with a zip gun, and she shows no remorse.<\/p>\n Come to think of it, all of the characters in \u201cItalian American Reconciliation\u201d are unbending types who tend toward outspokenness in pronouncement form. With the help of Eric Ting\u2019s direction, they make Mr. Shanley\u2019s dialogue seem effortless, natural and working-class poetic.<\/p>\n An Irish-American playwright who grew up in the Bronx, Mr. Shanley is best known for his\u00a0Pulitzer Prize<\/a>-winning play \u201cDoubt<\/a>\u201d and his Oscar-winning screenplay of \u201cMoonstruck<\/a>\u201d (1987). \u201cItalian American Reconciliation\u201d opened off Broadway a year later, and at least one comparison comes to mind.<\/p>\n While the matriarch of \u201cMoonstruck,\u201d played by Olympia Dukakis, professed a belief that being in love with the person you\u2019re going to marry will just lead to heartache, the wise older woman of \u201cItalian American Reconciliation\u201d is all about openness to love.<\/p>\n \u201cThrow away your book of fear,\u201d Teresa\u2019s Aunt Mae (Socorro Santiago) says. Then she compares the proper attitude toward a new relationship to refusing to lock your apartment no matter how many times you\u2019ve been robbed.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not saying what happens with Huey, Janice and Teresa. But by the final scene, Aldo has undergone a sea change. The man who declares inexplicably in Act I that he will never marry because \u201cthe state of the country has ruined all the girls\u201d now says, \u201cThe greatest success is to be able to love.\u201d<\/p>\n Painfully sentimental, but didn\u2019t you always know it was headed in that direction?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/05\/15\/nyregion\/italian-american-reconciliation-review.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Operatic, Comic Romance By ANITA GATES One look at the set for \u201cItalian American Reconciliation\u201d and you may form an opinion as to just what kind of production this is. \u201cIt looks like \u2018Tony n\u2019 Tina\u2019s Wedding,\u2019\u00a0\u201d one man said, as he took his seat at the\u00a0Long Wharf Theater\u2019s Mainstage, referring to the interactive play that ran in New York for more than two decades. At intermission, the same man, making a more personal connection, said, \u201cIt looks like Uncle Frank\u2019s catering hall in Staten Island.\u201d Actually, Scott Bradley\u2019s scenic design is inspired. The play,\u00a0John Patrick Shanley\u2019s\u00a01988 operatic comic romance, takes place in various settings, including a luncheonette and a woman\u2019s backyard. But the scenes are all played in what looks like the aftermath of a large, rowdy wedding reception. Surrounded by round tables littered with empty bottles, half-drunk glasses of red wine, used napkins and leftover balloons, the five characters in \u201cItalian American Reconciliation\u201d enact a story as emotionally heightened as an expensive, microplanned family celebration and as sad as the morning after. Our personable, funny narrator and star is Aldo Scalicki (John Procaccino), a bachelor who might be at home on the reality show \u201cJersey Shore,\u201d if he had a tan. Aldo\u2019s best friend is the skinny, angst-ridden Huey Maximilian Bonfigliano (Michael Crane). Huey has romantic problems. It has been three years since he and Janice (Lisa Birnbaum) divorced, but he wants to win her back, he says. Aldo thinks this is a misguided plan, because Huey is now with a wonderful woman, Teresa (the female characters have no last names), played by Stephanie DiMaggio. Teresa doesn\u2019t deserve to be hurt. To complicate things, Aldo himself may be attracted to Janice. Playing something like a\u00a0Cyrano\u00a0or a\u00a0John Alden, Aldo speaks to Janice to persuade her to give her former husband another chance. Their encounter is played as something of a balcony scene, with Janice standing on one of the higher steps of a very tall ladder. She is a tough woman, but what Teresa says about her (\u201cShe should live on a black mountain and drink out of a skull\u201d) seems unjustified. Janice does, however, admit to killing Huey\u2019s dog with a zip gun, and she shows no remorse. Come to think of it, all of the characters in \u201cItalian American Reconciliation\u201d are unbending types who tend toward outspokenness in pronouncement form. With the help of Eric Ting\u2019s direction, they make Mr. Shanley\u2019s dialogue seem effortless, natural and working-class poetic. An Irish-American playwright who grew up in the Bronx, Mr. Shanley is best known for his\u00a0Pulitzer Prize-winning play \u201cDoubt\u201d and his Oscar-winning screenplay of \u201cMoonstruck\u201d (1987). \u201cItalian American Reconciliation\u201d opened off Broadway a year later, and at least one comparison comes to mind. While the matriarch of \u201cMoonstruck,\u201d played by Olympia Dukakis, professed a belief that being in love with the person you\u2019re going to marry will just lead to heartache, the wise older woman of \u201cItalian American Reconciliation\u201d is all about openness to love. \u201cThrow away your book of fear,\u201d Teresa\u2019s Aunt Mae (Socorro Santiago) says. Then she compares the proper attitude toward a new relationship to refusing to lock your apartment no matter how many times you\u2019ve been robbed. We\u2019re not saying what happens with Huey, Janice and Teresa. But by the final scene, Aldo has undergone a sea change. The man who declares inexplicably in Act I that he will never marry because \u201cthe state of the country has ruined all the girls\u201d now says, \u201cThe greatest success is to be able to love.\u201d Painfully sentimental, but didn\u2019t you always know it was headed in that direction? http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/05\/15\/nyregion\/italian-american-reconciliation-review.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10237,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tingericting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tingericting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tingericting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tingericting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tingericting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.tingericting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tingericting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tingericting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tingericting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tingericting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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