NEGATIVES
Stage Left Theatre
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The plot concerns a disagreement between two brothers, Jimmy and Rob, over whether Jimmy’s autobiographical play should be produced. The baby of the family, Jimmy was mistreated as a child by an unbalanced and abusive stepmother following the death of his mother and the departure from home of his grown-up brother and sister. Now Jimmy has dramatized the experience; Rob, for secret reasons beyond the obvious ones, is upset at the idea of this painful history being put onstage before an audience.
Nelson’s play is–that is, it should be–a study in ironic contrast between the surface brightness of Pinocchio’s image and the underlying darkness of his reality. But Dennis McCullough’s staging of the piece–his first directorial effort at Stage Left since taking over as the company’s artistic director–is one-dimensional and unevocative; the pacing is tepid and the comic timing flaccid. Michael Troccoli, a capable actor, delivers his crucial “American dream” monologue in a dully monochromatic style that obscures its biting, escalating humor; the rest of the play reads as nothing more than a lifeless procession of entrances and exits, with only Patti Hannon, as a larcenous Italian mama, beginning to convey the earthiness Nelson wrote into the characters. The Return of Pinocchio is subtitled “An Adult Fable,” but McCullough’s staging (despite Susan Attea’s witty set) lacks the imagination and outlandishness that make a fable what it should be–fabulous.
