Hold the Commentary

"I AM SEX ON PARADE, a ton of beauty. I am fat and I am proud of it," crows Francine, the 350-pound Roman goddess of plump pulchritude in Alber Innaurato's Passione. Sex and food figure in prominently with the play's comic themes, as they did in Innaurato's highly successful Broadway production Gemini. But where the tasty humor and the social statement complemented each other will in Gemini in passione they form a somewhat less savory mixture. The bittersweet flavor Innaurato aims for is drowned in cloying source of sugary high-energy fun and the salty tears of a misplaced tugging at the emotional heartstrings.

The play opens with great promise, building the comic intensity will through the first act. The small theatre is tucked away in the basement of an Italian restaurant, and with intrepid imagination in set design, we easily believe that we are sitting in a seedy but bright, lower class North End apartment. From the crowded clotheslines hanging across the theatre to the peeling paint on the dingy walls to the dirty linoleum floor, the intimate theatre-in-the round atmosphere brings us completely into Berto's apartment.

Berto is a paunchy, middle-aged, ambitions but unsuccessful "inventor." He has brought his father from the senior citizens home to spend a day with the family. When in comes Aggy. Berto's estranged Southern belle wife, Who left him eight years ago to "find her life" in North Carolina. She has come back to retrieve some belongings and see her son Little Tom who had just entered college when she left Boston. She discovers to her dismay that the musically talented Tom has turned to performing as a clown in the city circus. His wife is the fat lady.

The first act's jokes and jibes build to a peak full of sexual and cultural references and effectively contrast the modern, sterile WASP society with the lively traditional Italian, by pitting the soft-spoken and slender Aggy against the raucous and obese Francine.

It is in the second act that the comedy begins to become slapstick. At the same time Innaurato tries to get serious. Aggy pleads with Tom to return to North Carolina, leave his wife, and rebuild his pathetic life. Resentful of her condemnation of his life and his values. Tom reacts first with anger and then with tears. He turns to his wife for solace, moaning "Maybe Aggy's right. Maybe I am a failure. "Francine sharply gives sarcastic voice to Innaurato's view of the clash of values: "You're right. You're a wop in a WASP. society. You're heavier than the skinny society. You're getting worse and worse and what a failure. Look at what you got as a wife... If you were a normal 30-years old you'd go on a diet, get a divorce and go to law school."

DO WE FEEL FOR Tom's situation? Do we empathize with Aggy, who finds herself attracted once again to the life and values her upbringing condemns? Not really. It is difficult to mix tragedy and comedy, and while it works sometimes, perhaps Innaurato should stick to light laughs. The pathos of the second act just doesn't mesh with the humor of the first.

As the pacing slows, we begin to hear strangely familiar lines about letting children grow up and do their own thing, accepting those you love for what they are. While on first impression these lines seem trite and overused in themselves, our reactions most likely stem from the cynicism and self centered values Innaurato is attacking. Perhaps this is the true serious social message of passions. While watching the lives of the characters unfold, fueled part by humor, part by drama, we see a certain realism beneath the cliche, cardboard characters. We can feel some of Aggy's pain, brought to life by Lynda Robinson in a strong, almost poignant performance. Our lives are a mixture of both comedy and tragedy; perhaps neither can rise to gradiose levels in the common man, but the feelings are real and present in all of us. In Berto and Aggy we may be able to get a glimpse of our own moments of laughter and sorrow.

The flaw in passione is that, if it does try to reach out form beneath the superficial and cliched to point out a subtle statement, the message is buried in overkill. While the characters lives seem realistic, the happy ending strains the limits of credibility and the illusion quickly falls apart. The playwright's challenge is to make an audience chuckle and choke up in the same evening, but Passione is not an appropriate vehicle for anything except laughter and some pointed satire.

Of course that it itself is enough to recommend the play for its sheer amusement. Keep the spicy jokes, but take it easy on the out-of-place social commentary, and Innaurato can still give you the ingredients for a delightful, if not necessarily through provoking, foray into cultural comedy.