Home >  A & E

Friday, February 22, 2002

By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic

As Homer Simpson said, "It's funny because it isn't me."

That makes Homer just the philosophic pragmatist you want to take along to review that resilient, lowest-common-denominator of entertainment, "Tony n' Tina's Wedding."

	Tony (John Patalano) and Tina (Jaime Cerota) during one of the happy moments of "Tony n' Tina's Wedding." (Matt Freed/Post-Gazette)

So I did. Well, he wasn't exactly Homer, but a smart young friend equally conversant in the works of Simpson and graver artistes. I'll call him The Groom To Be, because that's what he is, a nervous anticipator of his own wedding, currently in full throttle planning, plummeting madly down the runway toward mid-summer takeoff.

Nervous is the operative word. Just part way through Tony and Tina's pseudo wedding ceremony, TGTB admitted it: "I'm beginning to feel a little nervous."

With sensitive insight like that, you may well wonder why I was there at all -- I, a jaded veteran of three or four "Tony & Tinas" past, here and in New York. Why not just let TGTB review it himself?

But surely that would add embarrassment to anxiety. Somewhere in the common law it must be said that a man ought to be left in fearful anticipation of his own wedding without having to suffer public exposure. Better that TGTB's nerves and insights filter through my own blunter, long-married sensibility.

	'TONY N' TINA'S WEDDING' WHERE: Howard Perloff Productions at "Vinnie Black's Coliseum" (formerly Jellyrolls), Station Square. WHEN: Fri. 7:30 p.m.; Sat. 8:30 p.m.; Sun. 3 p.m.; some Saturdays 5 p.m.; open-ended run. TICKETS: $55 or $65 includes meal; 800-660-8462 or www.tonyandtina.com.

And what of The Bride To Be? She was there too, giggling in witness of the potential horrors. At one point in the reception, as the decided smell of pot (fake, I'm sure) drifted past, TBTB tilted her head prettily and admitted, "I can imagine that happening at our wedding, too."

Perish the thought! The guardians of morality in the vaguely Midwestern state where their wedding will transpire -- I don't want to blow their cover -- would shrivel with distaste.

As long as they didn't bust a gut laughing, first.

The planned and improvised mishaps of "T&T" are very funny, partly because of that doctrine according to Homer: "It's funny because it isn't me." But this is only a half-truth. It's also funny because it could be us. We all know weddings -- had one, been to a couple or even paid for several (my own most recent connection with the genre) -- so we bring more shared experience to "Tony n' Tina" than, say, to the average Shakespearean tragedy.

When the bride's dippy nun cousin leads a sappy song ... when the priest extols love until it sounds like perfumed hair oil ... when the caterer makes it clear the party's really about him ... when the groom's father's girlfriend begins to shed her clothes ... we recognize the territory.

The "T&T" trick is to be just real and just sappy enough, without getting offensive. In the ceremony, for example, staged in a room apart from the reception, the focus is on the showy behavior of the families and the personal readings and homilies, with little of the ecclesiastic.

The real fun starts at the reception, where the best way to enjoy yourself is join in when appropriate -- dance with the wedding party, chat up the family, help get Father Mark drunk.

Unfortunately, though, while the "T&T" at the Hilton last year dissipated itself in too much space, this one at Station Square is squeezed in so tight it's hard to dance or move around enough to sniff out the plot lines and back stories.

But Station Square has a decided advantage in using a live, four-piece band, "Donnie Dolce and Fusion, direct from Blawnox." They give the comic appearance of being bad, playing the inevitable love theme from "Rocky" and the "Godfather," but they're actually not bad at all.

Not so Dereck Walton, who's made a mini-career as Vinnie Black, "the Cadillac of Caterers," in several productions. Walton raises tacky to an art with funny over-enunciation and absurd flourishes for his silly Champagne March. He also does standup, with lots of deliciously bad ethnic jokes.

This evening is not for anyone squeamish about Italian stereotypes, in which it happily wallows. But there's good will beneath it all. Tony and Tina fight, but when they make up, director Kevin Alexander orchestrates a chorus of sympathetic aws and satisfied aaahs.

Among the actors, I like John Patalano's Tony and Jaime Cerota's Tina a lot. She's a bubbly, whiny spitfire; he has a heavily lidded, saturnine look, but with energy just beneath the surface. Groom and the three groomsmen look like the Steelers' front line.

Christine Conley has a great drop-dead cool as Connie, the very pregnant maid of honor. Mark Tierno is a bird-like priest, and Danielle D'Antonio's Madeline Monroe is a certified cutie, not nearly as trashy as she could be. Good acting extends to the band and even the waitstaff, including another cutie named Nikki.

So how much fun can you have by pretending to take part in someone else's family event? A lot, apparently, since the laughs don't have to be stifled to spare feelings -- it's "not us." My young couple had fun. At one point TBTB said it was scary, an object lesson on what to avoid at her own big do. At the end, TGTB noted that the whole show takes half the time of the normal wedding but still left him just as exhausted.

The dinner was the best I've had at a "T&T." Granted, that's a low standard to start with, but this buffet of chicken cacciatore, pasta marinara, sausage, Caesar salad, etc., brought me back for seconds. There's also wedding cake and a champagne toast, along with wine and beer until it runs out -- just like a real wedding.

They make a deal for groups, which is good, because you wouldn't want to go alone. Or find yourself a nice, soon-to-be-married couple (just-married works, too) whom you can tease.