The Rose Tattoo

The Rose Tattoo

Roundabout Theatre Company

American Airlines Theatre

September 21, 2019

Photo courtesy of
Roundabout Theatre Company

Marisa Tomei is passionate and tempestuous in Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of The Rose Tattoo.  Director Trip Cullman finds the rhythms and longings in Tennessee Williams’ writing.  He builds the action of the play to the stunning realization for the main character as she releases the past and opens her heart.  The original music by Fitz Patton and Jason Michael Webb sets the perfect tone throughout the play.  The composition and vocals allow time to  process and absorb the events of the story, as they connect the poignant moments.

It is1950 in a small Gulf Coast town.  Serafina (played by Marisa Tomei) is a Sicilian woman, passionately in love with her husband.  Together they have one daughter, Rose (played by Ella Rubin).  Serafina wakes from a dream one night and envisions her husband’s rose tattoo on her breast.  At that moment she knows she has conceived a son.  When her husband does not return from work, the women of the town come to tell her he has been killed.  The shock causes her to lose the baby.  Three years pass.  Seraphina keeps her husband’s ashes in an urn on a shelf, and holds on tight to her daughter’s innocence.  She prays to the Blessed Mother for help and send a sign of how to handle her daughter’s growing up.  Alvaro Mangiacavallo (played by Emun Elliott), a truck driver passing through, winds up at her door.  He has the body of her husband and the face of a clown.  Is this the sign Serafina was praying for?  What will it take for her to open her heart again?

Marisa Tomei as Searfina
Photo courtesy of Roundabout Theatre Company

Emun Elliott and Marisa Tomei have a powerful chemistry.  They find the humorous moments in Tennessee Williams writing, then dive deeply into the fire.  The second act is rich in emotion, discovery, pain, and joy.  Ella Rubin also shares a beautiful chemistry with her love interest, played by Burke Swanson.  She is bold and forthcoming, while he is reserved and respectful.  This plays out in wonderfully tender and sincere moments.

The entire ensemble works magnificently together to create a close-knit community.  The set design by Mark Wendland and lighting design by Ben Stanton evoke a warm, open, and run-down beach front home, complete with a stage covered in a foot of sand.

The Rose Tattoo is playing at the American Airline Theatre through December 8.  This production brings the poetry and passion of this Tennessee Williams work beautifully to life on a large scale.  The performances are magnificent!

Domenick Danza

Fun Home

Fun Home

Circle in the Square

February 17, 2016

Photo courtesy of Fun Home

Fun Home is an emotional journey of growing up and facing life’s hidden truths. It is a tender and realistic view of the world at that time in life when certain truths that have been held back are brought out into the open.  It is the emotional triumph when you make sense of it all and are able to face life with hope and truer sense of yourself.  These are very big statements to make about a Broadway musical, yet to sit in the theatre and experience the lives of the characters unfold in a multi-dimensional manner is rare.  The story itself, based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, is funny, honest, and moving.  The book and lyrics by Lisa Kron are bold and riveting.  The music by Jeanine Tesori engulfs and engages you in the dichotomy of both the whimsy and stark realities of the characters and situation.

Beth Malone & Micheal Cerveris
Photo courtesy of Fun Home

The main character, Alison (played by Beth Malone), tell us in the first scene that she and her dad (played by Michael Cerveris) are gay and that he killed himself by stepping out in front of a speeding truck.  That very tragic proclamation is quickly forgotten as you follow the playful antics of Alison (played by Gabriella Pizzolo as a child) and her two brothers (played by Zell Stelle Morrow and Oscar Williams).  She comes out while in college (played at that age by Lauren Patten) and begins to face the darker truths of her family life.  The fact that we simultaneously see Alison played by three actors at specific phases of her life combined with the amazing writing and emotional score allows the story to peel away and be revealed one layer at a time.   This gives the

Judy Kuhn & Sydney Lucas (original cast)
Photo courtesy of Fun Home

perspective of Alison’s memory a dominant role in the narrative as facts open up and then folds back in non-chronological order.   The most heart-rending moment is by Judy Kuhn as Alison’s mother in the song “Days and Days.”  It is a courageous confession of the disappointments in her marriage and the hopes for her daughter.  Ms. Kuhn delivers it flawlessly.

The set design by David Zinn and lighting design by Ben Stanton are phenomenal.  The flow from one moment to the next is conceived and conveyed brilliantly.  The design is in the scheme as set pieces and furniture rise up from beneath the floor, then descend to reappear on the other side of the stage.  They utilize the capacity

Photo courtesy of Fun Home

and technology of the space with carefully crafted expertise.

Everything you heard and read about Fun Home is true.  It is sure to be running for a long while, yet don’t put off seeing it.  It is a work of theatre that needs to be experienced first-hand. 

Domenick Danza