Disco moves, Italian food, and the immigrant experience meet in Made in Italy
Playwright-performer Farren Timoteo’s solo musical comedy is a coming-of-age tale inspired by family stories
Farren Timoteo in Made in Italy. Photo by Dylan Hewlett
The Arts Club presents Made in Italy by Farren Timoteo from March 17 to April 17 at the Granville Island Stage
FARREN TIMOTEO GREW UP proud and excited to be Italian. By the time he was born in Edmonton in the early ’80s, Italian culture—from clothes and cars to food, music, and art—was celebrated around the world. His father didn’t have the same experience. Shortly after his birth in Abruzzo, he and his family moved to Jasper, a small mountain town with an even smaller Italian community. “Mostly, he felt like an outsider,” Timoteo says in a phone interview with Stir. “He was rather embarrassed to be Italian.”
Timoteo, artistic director of Alberta Musical Theatre Company, explains that while his father was being bullied and ostracized as a teen, he spent those formative years developing stand-up comedy routines drawn from his Italian heritage. With a knack for making people laugh, he started mentally collecting anecdotes from his relatives over the years, filing away stories and finessing characters’ quirks. “Around the same time I became a theatre artist, I started learning more about my father’s experience,” Timoteo says. “With all the flavours and textures of what I knew about my family, it seemed to me there was a story that could be told.
Farren Timoteo.
“I had been creating musicals for children based on fairy tales for Alberta Musical Theatre Company, and I developed a voice that I like using,” he says. “I would make these emerging artists play dozens of different characters and sing and act and dance. I've always enjoyed the aesthetic and energy of watching an actor exhaust himself in front of an audience with as many disciplines as possible. I thought I would like to use that voice for me and I want to write what I know.”
The result is Made in Italy, Timoteo’s solo musical comedy that’s hitting the Arts Club stage. Written and performed by Timoteo, it tells the coming-of-age story of Francesco Mantini, a teenager living in Jasper who’s being harassed by his peers and grappling with traditional expectations of his dad, Salvatore. As refuge, he reinvents himself as Frank Martin, a crooner and ladies’ man, taking inspiration from the likes of John Travolta and Rocky Balboa.
Weaving in ’70s disco hits and classic Italian songs, the play takes place in Salvatore’s dining room. Over the course of the evening, he cooks a meal, with each dish being an entryway into memories of Francesco’s youth. The production’s structure reflects the symbolic importance of food in Italian culture. “I spent a great deal of time with my grandparents when I was very young and it felt like it was all about food,” Timoteo says. “Food was at the heart of everything we were doing. It was this constant gravity pull for everybody.”
Timoteo’s father is the show’s biggest fan, joining the audience wherever it’s being performed all across the country. Sadly, his grandfather died just before Made in Italy’s 2016 premiere at Western Canada Theatre in Kamloops, but somehow he’s there too. “It’s inspired by my family and many of them have passed on, but I spend every night that I do the show with them,” Timoteo says. “For me it’s a very beautiful statement on the power of art—that we bring things that are no longer with us to life again. My grandfather never got to see it, but to be honest I feel like he’s never missed a show. As soon as I walk out there, his spirit is alive and well.”
While Made in Italy looks at the alienation and struggles of the immigrant experience, Timoteo stresses that at its heart, it’s just plain fun (complete with the moves and hair of a Saturday Night Live era-Travolta). The seeds were planted for a career in theatre when he was a shy kid not sure where he fit in. The first time he made a witty comment in Grade 7 that made people laugh proved to be a turning point: “I never went back,” Timoteo says. “I started using my voice more and I started developing confidence around it. It was addictive. It led to exercising that muscle more, finding new ways to make people laugh. That was a sound that changed my life—the sound of laughter and having some part in compelling it.
“All of the storytelling in Made in Italy comes together for my sole purpose in theatre,” he says, “which is to generate joy and laughter.”
For more information, see the Arts Club.
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