Last week I took in this wonderful play that had me laughing throughout. Canadian playwright Steve Galluccio’s hugely successful play Mambo Italiano has a great cast, lead by the astonishing Susan Bertoia who plays “Maria” who is “Angelo’s mother” and Gina Chiarelli who plays “Lina” who is “Nino’s mother”, both of these woman’s performances were stellar.
Mambo Italiano, a tongue in cheek comedy about a conservative Catholic Italian family who is “shocked” that their son is gay. The comedy is about thirty something Angelo Barberini, the oddball son of Italian immigrants living in Montreal, who shocks his parents by moving out on his own, without getting married, announcing he is gay!
The parents are horrified and blame each other for his homosexuality. This revelation of the sexual orientation provokes hysteria that is hilarious. Mambo Italiano is not all farce; under all of the comedic acting there is seriousness about tolerance for persons of different sexual persuasions.
Mambo Italiano runs through April 30th at the Firehall Arts Centre. Tickets range from $17 – $29 and are available online at www.firehallartscentre.ca Call the Firehall at 604-689-0926
