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| Tony Calabretta (left) and Mary Long |
Planning a wedding, especially when it’s just days away, is a process that can
be a stressful thing. Not only for the bride in question, but also for the
family of the bride in question, especially if one certain family member has
trouble finding a date for the nuptials.
And that’s the scenario that is played out in Tony
Calabretta’s raucous comedy “Damn Those Wedding Bells!”, which is now playing
at the Leonardo Da Vinci Centre, located 8370 Lacordaire Boulevard in St.
Leonard, until September 25.
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| Christina Filippidis (right) and Dawn Ford |
The Robertini family is in an understandably frantic state,
as the wedding of daughter Connie (Christina Filippidis) is just days away, and
she is fretting over every detail and forgetting every other one. But that’s
not the only thing that is worrying family matriarch Nunziata (Mary Long). She
is concerned that her middle-aged son Anthony (Tony Calabretta), who still
lives at home, works at a dead-end job in a slaughterhouse and is an aspiring
writer (who has yet to commit a single word to a single sheet of paper), has no
date for his sister’s wedding; in fact, he is more comfortable wearing t-shirts
and sweat pants than trying to meet a potential girlfriend. That is why
Nunziata is doing everything within her power (and connections) to try and set
up the right girl for him, much to Anthony’s strong reluctance. Even brother
Frank (Guido Cocomello), a local actor and experienced ladies’ man, is
recruiting into getting that ideal mate for Anthony.
However, when Angela (Eleanor Noble), an attractive young
neighbor of the Robertinis, accidentally encounters Anthony when she drops by
the apartment to borrow some cake pans for her mother, he is hit by a thunderbolt,
and thinks she maybe THE one for him. But what he doesn’t know is that Angela
was actually one of Frank’s old flames from a few years before, and is about to
give him a second chance in their previously failed relationship.
This the setting that makes up the two hours of an
entertaining family farce that is “Damn Those Wedding Bells!”. What I found so
refreshingly surprising about this play is that at first glance, I thought the
focus would obviously be on Connie the bride-to-be, and all of the trials and
tribulations she would go through personally and family-wise as her wedding day
becomes closer to reality. But the focus on Anthony and his difficulty of
finding the ideal woman for him (and the frustrations and insecurities that he
has experienced through most of his life), gives this play a much more
unpredictable angle and shows that planning a wedding affects everyone in the
immediate family, and not just the bride-to-be.
There are plenty of laughs and humorous situations that
anyone in a similar situation can readily identify with. The ensemble cast is
excellent and each one brings to the table their own perspective to that much
revered – and stressful – situation that is the family wedding. And special
kudos go out to supporting cast members Shawn Campbell as Anthony and Frank’s
best friend (and Frank’s somewhat agent) David Greenberg, who steals the show
with plenty of excitable, loud, wildly gesticulating panache (especially during
the blister “operation” sequence that closes act 1, which is certainly of
sitcom quality); and Ariane Castellanos as Rosa, the Latin spitfire of a
potential suitor for Anthony, whose fast-paced seductive scene with Calabretta
adds a lot of spice to the show.
So whether you’re Italian, Jewish or Latino, “Damn Those
Wedding Bells!” is a wildly entertaining, raucous – and quite sensitive --
farce of the wild ride that a family goes through before one of their own
enters the bonds of holy matrimony. So before you say “I do”, see this play!
For more information, or to purchase tickets, call
514-955-8370, or go to www.cldv.ca.
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