Farren Timoteo in Made In Italy, Citadel Theatre. Photo by Nanc Price.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

There has to be a big table.

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That’s what Salvatore, the eminently hospitable patriarch of the Mantini clan, tells us at the outset of Made In Italy. And that’s what its creator and star Farren Timoteo will confirm, theatrically, in a display of virtuoso physical comedy in the course of this funny, touching, insightful many-character solo show.

In scenes that gather momentum, at speed in Daryl Cloran’s production, Timoteo will create an entire Italian family of vivid characters around it, single-handedly and with great precision — hypochrondriac aunties, quirky uncles, smarty-pants cousins, assorted sidekicks in both the Old and New Worlds. It’s his stage. He will sing and dance on it, lift weights on it, do push-ups on it, leap off and onto it in a high-speed profusion of guises. And in the course of a play based on Timoteo’s own immigrant family experiences and structured as courses of an Italian dinner, he’ll bring to it the traditional succession of dishes, from the aperitivo to the dolce. At one point, amazingly, he will populate an entire dinner party — molto vivace and with great clarity.

Farren Timoteo in Made In Italy, Citadel Theatre. Photo by Nanc Price.

Which is a way of saying that the handsome centrepiece of Cory Sincennes’ atmospheric dining room set, the one essential piece of furniture as Salvatore insists (“the heartbeat” of family life), is built to last. It takes a beating, in a good way, in Made In Italy.

And lasted it has. Since its premiere up seven years ago up close in a studio space at Kamloops Western Canada Theatre and then Citadel’s smallest house the Rice after that, Made In Italy has toured. Sold-out and repeat engagements in theatres of every size and shape —  mainstages across the country these days — are in its history. And there is something just right, of course, about the return of this homegrown hit to Edmonton and the Shoctor stage, in the biggest playhouse in Timoteo’s home town. There is also something challenging about a solo show on a vast stage.

Farren Timoteo in Made In Italy, Citadel Theatre. Photo by Nanc Price.

Sincennes’ set, backed by a wall of glowing multicoloured stained glass ‘windows’ and (real-life) Timoteo family photos, lands like a bright idea (lighting by Conor Moore and Celeste English) far back in the darkness of that stage. What you lose is the sense of raising a glass with Salvatore in his dining room. What you gain is a certain presentational pizzaz. After all, our joint protagonists are father and son, who share a coming-of-age story driven by the tensions built into the immigrant experience. And Salvatore’s teenage kid Francesco is a singer, an aspiring band leader who breaks out of the family expectations … by performing.    

There is something pretty irresistible about a culture that gravitates to music and art, celebrates its history and traditions, finds its consolations and its particular flavours, together — in all-ages gatherings over great food and wine. But it’s no picnic to be the only Italians in Jasper, Alberta in the 1970s. That’s where Salvatore, inspired by Timoteo’s grandfather, arrived from Abruzzo in the ‘50s to seek out “a better life.”

The moment of truth, for Francesco at six, is a sort of revelation of his outsider status in this alleged “better life.” His eyes are suddenly opened to the sight of sausages hanging from the family porch, wine stains on the driveway, bocce balls all over the lawn. It was, remembers his teenage self, “the single worst day of my life.” So much for Canadian complacency about welcoming multi-cultural divergence. In small-town Alberta the disaffected Italian teenager, a fictionalized version of Timoteo’s dad, is an outsider. He’s bullied constantly, targeted by awful ethnic slurs.

While Salvatore, the transplanted Italian is extolling the beautiful differences of his culture (and, arghhh, making his kid wear a suit to school), Francesco’s goal is to belong, to fit in, to be unremarkable unto invisible in generic Canadian-ness. “What can I doooooo?” he laments.

Francesco starts getting into trouble at school, much to the dismay of his dad. “How come I take the boat across the ocean?” Salvatore says accusingly, in a very funny escalating self-dramatization of his immigration story. “This is why I risk my life to come to Canada? Wazza wrong with you head?”

Farren Timoteo in Made in Italy, Citadel Theatre. Photo by Nanc Price.

What turns it around for Francesco is the inspiration of an Italian underdog-turned-hero, one Rocky Balboa, the Italian stallion. Francesco’s preparations for a new life chapter as a warrior occasion some of show’s most hilarious sequences, as he undertakes a riotous campaign of self-improvement. What one extraordinarily gifted physical actor/dancer can do in a comic pas de deux with weights is a showstopper (choreography by Laura Krewski). Ditto the hilarious Act II opening scene, as Francesco tells, and shows, us that time spent on good hair is never wasted, especially in the disco era.

Timoteo is a actor and dancer of acrobatic physical and verbal dexterity, and the impressive physical comedy of the show is such a major contributor to the fun of the evening. The cameos of fellow contestants in an Alberta’s Got Talent-type competition in Act II do seem peripheral to the story-telling in a two-hour show, in truth, funny as they are. But, hey, Timoteo is always fun to watch.

I’d forgotten how skilled he is at aging in the course of the show. Francesco seems to viscerally thickens as he coarsens musically, in expert pastiches of lounge-y songs (Timoteo is the most versatile of singers). What I did remember from previous experiences at the show was the blend, beautifully judged, of comedy and heartbreak in a coming-of-age story about the strains between first- and second-generation immigrants in this country of transplants — the expectations, the pressures, the guilt. Made In Italy has such a warm and affectionate embrace of its characters of all ages. You feel it as a generous squeeze in the theatre. And there’s dessert. Saluti.

Have you read the 12thnight PREVIEW interview with Farren Timoteo. It’s here.

REVIEW

Made In Italy

Theatre: Citadel

Created by and starring: Farren Timoteo

Running: Thursday through Jan. 28

Tickets: citadeltheatre.com, 7890-425-1820