St. Luke’s Theater reposes sedately, right off its busy street corner, in bustling Manhattan, but its kiosk hails the Broadway show, that daring “My Big Gay Italian Wedding.”
You gotta see it. It’ll take you down to Manhattan’s Little Italy, or better yet, to the scungilli and Alba bread of our own 18th Avenue, that proudly proclaims itself “Cristoforo Colombo Boulevard” above each street corner sign.
The opening scene takes us to the flavorfully modest home of an Italian-American family of four. Mom and Dad try jabbering with their hugely built daughter, trying to cope with her problems of girl-hood — till their older son comes home, all aglow and bubbling out the news of his new-found love — for a guy that he met on vacation.
Then it sinks in. A guy? Did he say guy? But the son comes on stronger, “You’re gonna love him. You’ll see.”
Then the fun began, as neither Maria or Joe Pinnunziata could sway the lovesick lad, who got hit with the thunderbolt while on vacation.
Scenes take us to the parish where the folks hope that their son might see the light — what is right — and what he’s doing wrong.
The scenes, especially in Regina Pacis Rectory, are hysterically funny and then only warming up for the many wilder wedding scenes at Bacci’s Wedding Hall.
The wedding had all the flavor of yesteryear’s Little Italy (on the old Lower East Side) with the wilder wedding halls of 18th Avenue — Brooklyn in its prime of yesteryear.
While the reception went wild onstage, the audience was in tune with the performers. The greatest laughter generator on stage was Fabio Taliercio, the boyfriend, played by Gregoria Salinari, a master of mispronunciation, who called the groom, his boyfriend, Mr. Colonoscopy.
The crowd, including this writer, watied outside to hail the performers, urging them to bring the fun over to Brooklyn. We can stage it, too.
