AP News, October 25th, 2007
Broadway has not hampered the considerable storytelling abilities of Chazz Palminteri.
"A Bronx Tale" (seen off-Broadway in 1989 and as a movie four years later), works just fine at the Walter Kerr Theatre, where Palminteri's enormously entertaining one-man show opened Thursday.
The actor's 90-minute, semi-autobiographical story takes place in the 1960s near the corner of 187th Street and Belmont Avenue in the Bronx, an Italian neighborhood that Palminteri clearly remembers with humor, great affection and more than a little heartbreak.
Theater these days is awash in one-person shows, but what makes this one particularly effective is its ability to conjure up a specific time and place, not to mention a parade of appealing characters, even if some are a little less than reputable.
"A Bronx Tale" is a coming-of-age story, the journey of a young man named Cologio from childhood into his late teens and all the colorful folks he meets along the way.
The craggy Palminteri, nattily dressed in gray slacks and a blue shirt, has a disarmingly simple way of bringing these people to life. You can get a sense just by his recitation of their names: Harry A-Hee-Arrrhh, Jimmy Ten-to-Two, Eddie Mush, Frankie Coffee Cake, Rudy Ice, Phil the Peddler, JoJo the Whale and more.
Foremost among them, though, is the more prosaically named Sonny, described as "the number-one man in the neighborhood." Sonny watches the world from the corner of 187th Street and Belmont Avenue, and nothing escapes his attention.
Sonny bonds with Cologio after the boy witnesses a murder the man commits and then lies about it to the police. The tie is further strengthened when the lad gets some lucky throws of the dice in a neighborhood game, giving Sonny a big win.
It's then that the mobster takes the boy under his wing, rechristening him C and saying, "You're going to the best school in the whole world — the University of Belmont Avenue." Sonny becomes a surrogate father for C, wanting him to get an education from both the street and from school. "This way you'll be twice as smart as everybody else," the gangster says.
Yet "A Bronx Tale" is about more than C's relationship with Sonny. Another major character is the youth's father, Lorenzo, a hardworking bus driver. "His uniform was always so neat and clean and his top button was always closed. Even if it was 99 degrees, my dad never wanted to look sloppy," the son remembers with obvious adulation.
Lorenzo also serves as the show's moral compass, and C's divided allegiance to his father and to his mentor provides "A Bronx Tale" with its conflict. However, the show never becomes heavy-handed or moralistic. Director Jerry Zaks moves things along quickly, capitalizing on Palminteri's conversational, easygoing manner.
But then the actor looks right at home on the Kerr stage, decorated with a simple setting (designed by James Noone) that includes a corner street sign, the stoop of the family's tenement and the facade of a bar called the Chez Joey, a watering hole where all the wise guys hung out. It's the perfect environment for Palminteri's vibrant, warmhearted saga and the people who populate his memories.
