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    Mambo Italiano
    Mambo Italiano
    Mambo Italiano
    Ebook164 pages1 hour

    Mambo Italiano

    By Steve Galluccio

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Mambo Italiano achieves its overwhelming power through a perfect balance of fast-paced comedy and poignant drama. Angelo, at the prompting of his equally repressed sister Anna, has told his very traditionally Italian immigrant parents, Maria and Gino, that he is gay. Hurt, betrayed and mortified by Angelo’s coming out, his lover Nino is not unprepared for his widowed Italian mother Lina’s reaction—a full-on operatic barrage of melodrama and hysterical excess so profound it gives even Angelo’s shocked parents pause for second thoughts and prompts a hilarious and touching re-examination of their own outraged response to their son. Seeing their relationship shattered by their families’ reactions of grotesquely overplayed comedy and pathos, Angelo emerges from the drama with his new-found pride intact, while Nino retreats even further into the darkness of his bisexual closet.

    While the press has often called the film version of Mambo Italiano “a gay My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” there is far more at work in the play than the zealous mining of Italian immigrant family and gay culture stereotypes. Translated by Michel Tremblay, its huge fan, into a wildly successful Francophone theatrical phenomenon, Mambo Italiano is far more about the dynamics of family, about the vast spaces between the old world and the new, about grasping the resonant codes embedded in what is said and what is meant in ordinary speech, than it is “about” gay culture. In perhaps the play’s most defining scene, the parish priest has been bribed with a bottle of wine and a carton of cigarettes to vacate his confessional so it can be occupied by the members of Angelo’s family to ritually unburden themselves of their hilarious sins of personal hypocrisy, willful misapprehension and thoughtless transgression.

    Cast of four women and three men.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTalonbooks
    Release dateJan 1, 2016
    ISBN9781772010626
    Mambo Italiano
    Author

    Steve Galluccio

    Steve Galluccio started his career in the Montreal underground theatre scene in 1990. He burst into the mainstream with Mambo Italiano, one of the most successful plays in Canadian theatre history. The play was turned into a movie which became an international hit, sold in more than fifty-three countries, including the U.S. Galluccio followed Mambo with the Gemini Award-winning TV series Ciao Bella. Ciao Bella was also broadcast in Europe and the United States. Galluccio’s second feature film Surviving My Mother won the audience favourite award at the Montreal Film Festival, and was featured in many prestigious film festivals all over the world. Galluccio’s third feature, the bilingual Funkytown opened in January 2011. In Piazza San Domenico, Galluccio’s ninth play, was the number one comedy in Montreal in the fall of 2009, selling out most of its extended run. In 2012, Galluccio released Montréal à la Galluccio, a whimsical guide of his beloved hometown of Montreal.

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      Book preview

      Mambo Italiano - Steve Galluccio

      For my family

      Contents

      Production History

      ACT ONE

      Scene 1: Maria and Gino’s House

      Scene 2: Angelo and Nino’s Apartment

      Scene 3: Café

      Scene 4: Maria and Gino’s House

      Scene 5: Angelo and Nino’s Apartment

      Scene 6: Crescent Street Bar

      Scene 7: Gino and Maria’s House

      Scene 8: Angelo and Nino’s Apartment

      Scene 9: Gino and Maria’s House

      Scene 10: Angelo and Nino’s Apartment

      Scene 11: Gino and Maria’s House

      Scene 12: Cemetery

      Scene 13: Crescent Street Bar

      Scene 14: Gino and Maria’s House

      ACT TWO

      Scene 1: Nino’s Office

      Scene 2: Gino and Maria’s House

      Scene 3: Angelo’s Apartment

      Scene 4: Street (Plaza St. Hubert)

      Scene 5: Angelo’s Apartment

      Scene 6: Cemetery

      Scene 7: Angelo’s Apartment

      Scene 8: Confession Booth

      Scene 9: Angelo’s Apartment

      About the Author

      Copyright

      Mambo Italiano was first performed in French, translated by Michel Tremblay, at La Compagnie Jean-Duceppe, Montreal, Quebec, on December 13, 2000 with the following cast:

      ANGELO – Michel Poirier

      ANNA – Adèle Reindhardt

      NINO – Patrice Godin

      PINA – Maude Guérin

      MARIA – Véronique LeFlaguais

      LINA – Pierrette Robitaille

      ANGELA – Mireille Deyglun

      GINO – Normand Lévesque

      Directed by Monique Duceppe

      Set Design by Marcel Dauphinais

      Props and Costume Design by Anne Duceppe

      Lighting Design by Luc Prairie

      Sound Design by Claude Lemelin

      Stage Manager: Carol Gagné

      The first English language production of Mambo Italiano was produced by Centaur Theatre Company, Montreal, Quebec, on September 27, 2001 with the following cast:

      ANGELO – Andreas Apergis

      ANNA – Ellen David

      NINO – Joseph Gallaccio

      PINA – Suzanna Le Nir

      MARIA – Mary Long

      LINA – Penny Mancuso

      GINO – Michel Perron

      Directed by Gordon McCall

      Set, Costume, and Props Design by John C. Dinning

      Lighting Design by Luc Prairie

      Stage Manager: Christina Hidalgo

      Assistant Stage Manager: Merissa Tordjman

      Assistant to the Director: Vania Rose

      ACT ONE

      Scene 1: Maria and Gino’s House

      Set is dark. Loud music plays. Wash comes up on Barbieri family. ANGELO, mid-thirties, MARIA, mid-sixties, and GINO, mid-sixties. MARIA is visibly upset by the ear-splitting music. Both MARIA and GINO speak with Italian accents.

      MARIA

      (shouting) Could somebody please turn that music down!

      Music continues to play.

      (shouting louder) Per favore! Turn down the musica!

      Music stops. ANNA, late thirties, enters with a bowl of salad, sets it on the table and sits down.

      (to ANNA) I told you to turn it down, not to shut it off.

      ANNA

      When you say turn it down it always means to shut it off.

      GINO

      What’s wrong with a little music while we’re eating?

      MARIA

      It was too loud, it was giving me a headache … Anna go turn the music back on. I don’t want your father accusing me of ruining his supper.

      GINO

      Never mind Anna. I don’t want your mother to get one of her headaches because of my music.

      ANNA

      (upset) But it was my music!

      ANGELO

      (to change the subject) Your lasagna is really good, mamma.

      MARIA

      (affectionately) Grazie Angelo.

      (not so affectionate) But it’s not good enough to keep you living at home, ah?

      ANNA

      If there’s gonna be another argument about why Angelo isn’t living here anymore, I’m leaving the table!

      GINO

      No one leaves this table until supper is over!

      ANNA pours herself some wine. MARIA stops her.

      MARIA

      One glass of wine is enough!

      ANNA

      It’s my first glass!

      MARIA

      It’s your second!

      GINO

      If your mother says it’s your second, it’s your second!

      ANGELO

      (sarcastic) There’s nothing like a relaxing evening at home!

      MARIA

      Why is this not relaxing? What are your ignorant Italian parents doing wrong now?

      ANGELO

      It was just a joke, ma.

      MARIA

      Save your stupid jokes for your plays.

      GINO

      (to ANGELO) Angelo, your cousin Franca just got a promotion at work. She says if you want her old job, it’s yours. Call her Monday.

      ANGELO

      Pa, I have a job.

      MARIA

      You don’t have a job.

      ANNA

      But mamma, he’s a writer!

      GINO

      That should be his hobby!

      ANGELO

      Hobby? Pa, I write for a sitcom. I’ve won awards. My plays have been produced all over. I’m published!

      MARIA

      But where’s the security in that, ah?

      GINO

      Where’s the pension plan, ah?

      ANGELO

      (exasperated) But … I … Anna, you talk to them.

      ANNA

      (to ANGELO) This is the part where you pour yourself another glass of wine.

      ANGELO

      (to MARIA and GINO) Then you guys wonder why I left?

      MARIA

      Si, we wonder. What is so wrong with living at home until you get married? Both your father and me did it, and we’re not dead.

      GINO

      We’re still here.

      MARIA

      And after we got married we had both our mothers living with us.

      GINO

      And your crazy Aunt Yolanda, until she got married.

      MARIA

      (shouting) My sister Yolanda was not crazy!

      ANNA

      She was so cool. She’d always put the radio on full blast and dance around the apartment.

      ANGELO

      But didn’t you guys ever wanna be out on your own?

      MARIA

      What for? What’s so special about being out on my own?

      GINO

      Nothing at all!

      MARIA

      Besides, you’re not on your own. You got a roommate.

      ANGELO

      It’s less expensive that way, ma.

      GINO

      If you were still living with us, it would cost you nothing at

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