Napoli, Brooklyn - Park Theatre

[joem]

Inoffensive but unremarkable slice-of-life Italian-American mini family saga set in the sixties. Aspires to be A View From the Bridge but ends up falling well short of this. Well produced, quite well acted (bar the odd over-enthusiastic Brooklyn accent) but when wondering what the play was for, rather than what it was about, I didn't really have a convincing answer. Life was tough? Yes. Some fathers are monsters? Yes. etc etc.

Contains some lines of the annoying type I abhor where characters in the past are made to say things just so that we in (their) future can smile knowingly and laugh at the theatre. An idiot on a Tuesday isn't less of an idiot than an idiot on a Monday. The only advantage he has is knowing what happened the day before.

The statue of Mary on stage in front of me left my seat as virgin on a restricted view.

[showgirl]

Really glad to see a review of this at last, joem, even if it sounds mediocre. I have been following the progress of this play on tour (including Eastbourne, Guildford and Oxford), as it sounded appealing, but no matter how often I searched, I couldn't find any reviews - not even in the local press or on blogs. Maybe others here will now emerge to say they've also seen it; plus I think PN is Monday so there should be more opinions soon.

[nialld]

I found I got more into this as it went on. There's quite a lot of different threads running and I found that the direction lacked fluidity at first. I did find that it became much more satisfying and powerful when the characters were brought together moreso in the second half - the Christmas Eve dinner scene was particularly strong. Without spoiling, a big event happens at the end of Act 1 which ramps it up a big deal I think and creates a more interesting situation - the drama in the first half seems to mostly centre around one of the sisters cutting her hair and you don't get a sense that the stakes are that high until the second half. I thought the acting was strong all round, with Madeleine Worrall, Hannah Bristow and Gloria Onitiri giving the standout performances for me. Overall, I'd say its worth seeing.

[stevej678]

One star from WhatsOnStage. "Inept", "mediocre" and "wearingly cliched" are some of the adjectives used to describe it. "The only things likely to provoke tears here are the onions...and possibly boredom."

www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/reviews/napoli-brooklyn-park-theatre_49283.html