“Fuhgeddaboudit”
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| Stars range from 5-1. |
I really, really, really wanted to like this dark
comedy about the mob, since you never want to mess with the wise guys. DINNER
WITH THE BOYS, at the Acorn on Theatre Row, certainly has a lot to recommend it:
it’s written by actor Dan Lauria, a fairly frequent presence on the New York
stage best known for TV’s “The Wonder Years”; it stars Mr. Lauria and two other
talented Italian-American actors, Ray Abruzzo (“The Sopranos”) and Richard
Zavaglia (DONNIE BRASCO): its popular, extended showing last year at Long Branch’s New
Jersey Repertory Company, with the same cast, got warm reviews, including one
from the New York Times; and it’s a
Mafia comedy, a subgenre that's produced such well-known movies as THE GANG THAT
COULDN’T SHOOT STRAIGHT, WISE GUYS, and ANALYZE THIS.
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| From left: Richard Zavaglia, Dan Lauria. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
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| From left: Richard Zavaglia, Ray Abruzzo. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
After the lively pre-show music (the sound designer is
Matt Kraus) sets the tone with (mostly) 1950s pop tunes sung by
Italian-American crooners, a Brooklyn-accented voice on the loudspeaker requests
us to turn off our cell phones and mock-threatens us that we will enjoy the show.
The lights come up on a realistically detailed eat-in-kitchen, designed by Jessica
Parks, chock-full of homey touches, including a copy of “The Last
Supper” over the upstage door. Residing here are Charlie
(Mr. Lauria) and Dominic (Mr. Zavaglia), two aging goombahs floating in domestic limbo for half
a year in “the wilds of New Jersey,” waiting to find out how they’re going to
be punished for failing to bump off a friend and fellow hoodlum named Leo. Dom, the Felix of this odd couple, is an obsessive cook who can’t stop
talking and thinking about Italian food, while Charlie, the Oscar, grows
veggies in the garden that Dom uses in his recipes. As they await their fate,
they spend the time eating Dom’s specialties and reminiscing about the
gruesome hits (like burning someone to death in a pizza oven) they witnessed
during 30 years of faithful service.
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| From left: Dan Lauria, Ray Abruzzo, Richard Zavaglia. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Soon, their fearsome new boss, Big Anthony, Jr. (Mr.
Abruzzo), appears in the doorway—dressed in black, fedora on his head, and
dramatically backlit in blue—and, as casually as if he were telling him to swat a fly, orders Charlie to kill Dom. From here on, what’s already being played on steroids
goes to the next level, as Mr. Abruzzo feasts manically on Dom’s cooking and
Dom and Charlie find a way to slice and dice through their dilemma. In act two,
Junior’s successor, “the Uncle Sid” (also Mr. Abruzzo), an elderly Jew with a Dr.
Kronkite accent and a silver toupee that looks like something dead, arrives, with a couple
of young goombahs-in-training outside in the car. Charlie and Dom may never
have heard of SWEENEY TODD, but if you’re ever hungry while driving through New
Jersey and spot a joint advertising Charlie and Dom’s Fine Northern Italian Cuisine, allow me to suggest you try Pizza Hut instead.
Mr. Lauria wants to satirize the
violence associated with Mafia-based movies, TV shows, and plays (serious and
comic) by exaggerating it to the nth degree. He even has a scene where Charlie and
Dom react with distaste to the news of war and violence in the newspaper, as if
only the murders the mob commits are justified.
CHARLIE: You got a beef
with a guy. He’s a rat, a stoolie, some kinda scum who don’t know for what’s
right. Take ‘em out. Kill his ass. That I understand. But blowing away a dozen
guys because your feelings is hurt?! Unarmed guys?! Kids for Godsakes. I mean
what kinda cowardly bullshit is that? Let me tell ya, Dom; “Me and Leo done a
lotta guys in our time, but I can say here and now, there wasn’t a one that
didn’t have it comin’.” Punks, stoolies, guys who welched on their bets, but never
without cause; a justifiable cause. You know what I mean?
He goes too far, though; the Grand Guignolish brutality
Mr. Lauria both describes and depicts is so broadly presented and grotesque,
and the offensive characters who stand behind this heinous behavior so caricaturish
and clichéd that, for all the superficial comedic charm they try hard to
project—as if poisoners, knifers, throat slitters, and people burners are
really lovely people with tough guy accents—any sympathy one might have for
their predicament turns (like that guy in the oven) to ashes. One of Charlie’s
stories, for example, describes the killing of an overweight female bookie who
was thrown off the Brooklyn Bridge with a noose around her throat only for her
head to be snapped off when the rope stopped while the killers stood there enjoying its rhythmic swinging with the head still attached. Macabre comedy is common enough, of course,
on both stage and screen; here, however, the humor struggles to overcome the
horrific circumstances it’s meant to make fun of.
Under Frank Megna’s overheated direction, all three
actors, who have done excellent work elsewhere, seem to be willing the audience
to laugh by overplaying, shouting, and otherwise doing all they can to say, “Isn’t
this funny?” Mr. Abbruzzo's Big Anthony in particular chews almost as much scenery as he does Dom's highly seasoned meat. I suspect a drier, deadpan approach might prove more appropriate for this material than such overt pushing. I don't deny that some
spectators (not in my vicinity, though) laughed lightly at the ridiculous antics,
mangled language (i.e., “Leo used ta say I was a regular raccoon-a-teur”), winking references to tiny meat and shrimp balls, and a desperately unfunny string of comments
about Greeks; laughing is certainly easier than getting whacked.
DINNER WITH THE BOYS
Acorn Theatre
410 West 42nd Street, NYC
Through July 5