La Magnani!
Written by Theresa Gambacorta
Directed by Elizabeth Kemp
The Arclight Theatre152 West 71st Street
212-279-4200
Review by Andrea M. Meek

When she first steps onto the stage with a thunderous voice, thick accent and stereotypical Italian gestures, Theresa Gambacorta’s portrayal of Italian actress Anna Magnani comes across as overkill. Gambacorta developed La Magnani! under the direction of Elizabeth Kemp and first performed it at the Gene Frankel Theatre in the fall of 2004. She’s been acting in the biographical solo show for some time now, and it shows. The energetic performance is polished, if somewhat lacking in subtlety, and the imitation is technically impressive.It’s Oscar night 1956 – a night in which Magnani will be named Best Actress for her role as Serafina in Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo. The play takes place in Anna’s memory, which is designed as a multi-leveled stage with stairs, a table and a single chair. As she waits for the winner to be announced, Magnani gives us a rundown of her life up until that moment. She tells us of being abandoned by her mother, the lovers she’s won and lost (including Roberto Rossellini, whom she lost to Ingrid Bergman), her failed marriage to Italian filmmaker Goffredo Alessandrini, and her son Luca’s paralysis after being stricken with polio. Here, the character of Magnani is at once engrossing and irritating. A doomed love affair is heartbreaking the first time – by the fourth, Magnani starts to sound like just another exasperating friend who can’t keep a boyfriend.

Bada Bing! Theresa Gambacorta lays on a pretty thick Italian accent in La Magnani.

Kemp’s direction has Gambacorta running around the stage, making the already rapid transitions in the script all the more frantic and confusing – this, and the overly thick Italian accent, makes the story difficult to follow. Gambacorta pantomimes scenes of Magnani’s life on stage, and then shatters the illusion by placing an imagined person in the middle of a table or floating in a staircase. But Gambacorta has taken on the immense and challenging task of recreating a larger-than-life persona, and, in the end, she leaves a lingering imprint as the vibrant Magnani.