Beowulf Boritt’s scenery can be as large a character as anything in a show. Take the phenomenal cityscape from Act One (the play from Moss Hart’s memoir) that rotated from tenement to luxury penthouse and back again. It was an awesome framing device to an exceptional play. We are treated to big moving brownstones in A Bronx Tale, but this time they get in the way. Perhaps they were going for choreography but the structures’ spinning, then moving upstage and back throughout the proceedings is distracting, overwhelming this rather underwhelming musical.
Based on his one man show turned into a well-admired 1993 movie, Chazz Palminteri wrote the book with Alan Menken (every Disney musical and the great Little Shop of Horrors) providing the music. We are in the Bronx alternating between the years 1960 and 1968 in an Italian neighborhood ruled by “goodfellas.” Young Calogero is a child seduced by the easy money earned from the mob. The older Calogero is our narrator and lead character in the story who is looking back on choices made, while trying to find the right path for his future (Bobby Conte Thornton, confident portrayal in his Broadway debut).
At far too many curtain calls these days, the audience leaps to its feet like puppies begging for Snausages. Tellingly, that did not happen at the end of A Bronx Tale although the audience seemed more satisfied with the show than me. There’s one outstanding song, “One of the Great Ones” sung by our mob-in-chief played by the always solid Nick Cordero (best thing in Bullets Over Broadway, great off-Broadway work in Nice Girl and Brooklynite). All of the other songs are unmemorable. Supporting players with little to do are given goombah names (Frankie Coffeecake, JoJo the Whale) but there is no character development whatsoever. The direction is credited to Broadway veteran Jerry Zaks and Robert De Niro (who also directed the movie, his first). If telling your cast to stand center stage in the spotlight and sing facing forward is direction, then WOW. But the set moves a lot so I guess someone had to coordinate that. The absolute worse thing in A Bronx Tale was the Sound Design. The cast was amplified like it was playing an arena. When the material is this subpar, loudness does not help. I’ve certainly seen worse but this one’s not good. Terrible may be too strong. But maybe not.
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