By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
August 8, 1986
Amidst the Gladiolas
Francine Defanie (Mary Marro)
Sammy Lucchesse (Daniel Ruben)
Bernard (Gus Buktenica)
Connie Barbalottio (Josette DiCarlo)
Maryanne (Carolyn Kodes)
Phyllis (Gilmary Doyle)
Rosa (Patti Hannon)
Jenny (Mary Potts)
A play by Vito A. Gentile Jr., directed by Joyce Fox. With sets by Ann Dillon and sound by Zachary Gass. Presented by Human Medium Ensemble at the New Lincoln Theater, 3443 N. Lincoln, 525-5104.
Performances through Aug. 23.
When a playbill gives as much credit to a casket as it does its stars, you know you’re in for a good time.
“Amidst the Gladiolas” is a good play on two levels. While it projects genuine humor, the production also is poignant with scenes that hit home more often than not. It centers on a day in the lives of eight people at a wake. And while the premise doesn’t seem to hold much promise for laughter, the Human Medium Ensemble cleverly brings out the everyday tensions revolving around the death of a loved (or not so loved) one.
The deceased is a Brooklyn police officer known to the audience as Joe. Depending on whom you believe, Joe was either an upstanding officer who died in the line of duty or an officer on the take. It’s no matter to Francine, his grieving and pregnant lover. Played by Mary Marro, a young actress blessed with an innocent-looking peaches-and-cream face that almost makes up for her bad New York accent, Francine is a sympathetic character. Hers also is the most difficult role – the only non-comical one in the production.
While Marro is on the verge of tears for most of the play, her antithesis – Connie, Joe’s estranged wife – struts around the funeral parlor showing contempt for the woman sitting in the widow’s chair. Dark, sultry and street-wise, Josette DiCarlo plays Connie like a young Rita Moreno. Her dialect is marvelous, and her mannerisms are those of a nervous, chain-smoking New Yorker. It’s obvious there’s no love lost between her and the husband she has not lived with for 10 years.
Though Marro is the obvious outsider at the wake, DiCarlo feels alienated from her relatives. DiCarlo’s mother-in-law chides her for not bringing Joe’s only child, and she repeatedly asks where he is. When finally told that he didn’t come because he ran away with his gay lover, DiCarlo’s mother protectively adds, “She did nothing wrong!”
As the two mothers, Patti Hannon and Mary Potts are delightful. Potts, who sounds and looks like a frail Father Guido Sarducci, is especially funny as the put-upon in-law.
Marro finds little comfort in the sycophantic undertaker who tells her the pope might stop by since he’s in the neighborhood or her well-intentioned, but crass, friends. Maryanne, a gum-smacking beautician, observes the closed casket and quips, “I hate it when they’re closed. You never know if they’re in there.”
The play has a relatively weak ending and leaves many unanswered questions, such as: After 10 years of separation, why didn’t Connie divorce Joe?
