Theatre review: Made in Italy's physical comedy is a full-body affair
Farren Timoteo’s impressions sing, the solo actor sometimes pulling off a dinner-table full of guests in warm-hearted second-generation story
Farren Timoteo plays the disco-dancing Francesco in Made in Italy. Photo by Moonrider Productions
The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Made in Italy at the Granville Island stage until April 17 and again from July 28 to August 21
FOR AN IDEA of how seriously silly Farren Timoteo’s physical comedy can get in Made in Italy, consider a fully choreographed demo of his main character Francesco’s hair routine. Set to disco beats, it involves a giant swirl of styling mousse and one of those old ‘70s brush blowdryers, building to a two-can crescendo in which the character not so much applies hairspray to his Tony Manero special as he applies his ‘do to the clouds of hairspray.
Directed by Daryl Cloran, the solo show’s biggest draw is Timoteo’s talent for caricature and impressions, easily differentiating multiple characters. In one of Made in Italy’s other great scenes, he plays an entire extended family of dinner guests around the set’s central, wood dining table—a kind of elaborate musical chairs that shifts between patriarch Salvatore telling a joke that won’t end, a young Francesco being forced to sing in Italian, an uncle jabbering about garage doors, and an old widow whinging about her sore leg and her “cholester-oil”.
Based on the hit Western Canada Theatre production, the show, unsurprisingly, grew partly out of Timoteo’s love of mimicking his relatives. And that gives the story a warmhearted feeling, literally putting you at the dinner table with the characters.
The triple-threat actor-writer has based the play partially on his father’s experiences growing up as a second-generation Italian in small-town Jasper, Alberta. Here, Francesco’s first-generation father, Salvatore, won’t stop reminding him how much he sacrificed to bring him to Canada in the 1950s (including hilariously exaggerated tales about his cross-Atlantic ship almost sinking). Francesco suffers racial slurs and bullying as an outsider at his Alberta high school, eventually rebelling against his Italian roots—at one point, even changing his stage name as a singer to Frank Martin (not to mention swearing off lasagne). It’s an immigrant story that resonates, but it has wider appeal for anyone who’s ever been embarrassed by their parents—then felt bad about it later.
Though it could easily stand to be trimmed into a one-act play, Made in Italy is full of big laughs and funny storytelling, whether Francesco is travelling to Italy to meet his relatives or bulking up to take on the school bullies. Timoteo couches the whole thing effectively within a traditional Italian meal of different courses, Salvatore proudly explaining each one (and wondering aloud why in the hell anyone would start their dinners with salad).
The real entertainment comes watching the detailed personal tics that he gives each character, from the cousin who obsessively yanks his belt up so hard he occasionally sends himself airborne, to the uncle who taps and strokes every object–even a coffin–to see if it’s made well. Laura Krewski’s choreography adds extra panache to these full-body numbers.
Cory Sincennes’ set and Conor Moore’s lighting brilliantly transport us to each location. The backdrop is a full wall of framed portraits, and the backlit pictures can flicker like the lights passing a car at night, flash like a police car, or turn colours that become the stained glass windows of a church. One portrait even comes to life as a character.
The play does have some weaker moments. The origin story for Francesco coming to Canada is incredibly sad, but the fast-moving Made in Italy doesn’t seem to know how to fit that in tonally. Similarly, a story about Francesco’s cousins taking him to a small-town Italian sex worker feels off-key.
Still, the Granville Island stage, which was dark for so much of the pandemic, builds a perfect intimacy and camaraderie for the one-hander. The audience members on the day of this show were with Timoteo for every second of Made in Italy, whether they were whooping for a killer disco-dance sequence or laughing with him when he cracked up during the pants-hiking scene. And while they didn’t get to take home any of Salvatore’s pasta fagioli soup, they at least carried away a new lexicon of Italian swear words.
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