Only in Naples (19 page)

T
he SAIS master's program includes a year in Bologna and a year in Washington. It was understood that after my year in Bologna, I would go back to the hum of central air-conditioning, to “Have a nice day!” and a linear career path. As my fellow students organized their summer internships and their upcoming semesters in D.C., I started buying bags of chocolate amaretto cookies. I discovered Bolognese binge food.

It wasn't just that I missed Naples and the Avallones (although it would have greatly helped to have been spoon-fed some of Raffaella's lasagna on a regular basis at that point). Once again, I was hungry for the stage. Although I'd performed my way through high school and college, I had never acted professionally. It was time for me to work in theater as a grown-up: I wanted to take a risk and see if I could make a living doing something I loved.

When I told my mother that I'd decided not to finish the program in Washington, she reminded me that I wouldn't have an advanced degree: all I'd have to show for my year in Bologna was “a
di-plOH-ma,
sweetheart
”—
that long “O” making it sound like a certificate for winning points at a boardwalk arcade. She told her friends that her younger daughter had decided to take a temporary (at least I
hope
it's temporary!) “leave of absence.” When I explained my decision to Raffaella, she said, “Okay,” and then asked what I was planning for dinner. Salva said, “Oh! We have a showgirl!” He pronounced it
show-gEErl.

I spent the summer working on audition pieces, and came back to Italy in the fall ready to find out where the Italian productions were and to try to get cast. Little did I know that though I was in the land of Dante's
Divina Commedia
, the comedy of Italian theater wasn't always so divine.

My first audition in Italy was for the Neapolitan director Tonino Reale's musical version of
The Picture of Dorian Gray
at the spectacular baroque Teatro Bellini in central Naples. I brought my “I Could Have Danced All Night” sheet music and the text of a Blanche Dubois monologue from
A Streetcar Named Desire
in Italian. I was nervous, and looked anxiously for the waiting room, expecting to commiserate with other water bottle–nursing actors dressed in black. What I found instead was a hot eighteenth-century salon that stank of BO and powder. The communal stage fright of the scantily clad
velina
types was palpable.

There was a lot of exposed flesh and thick Pan-Cake makeup. I should keep my eyes down, I thought, so they don't land inadvertently on cleavage or thongs. I sat down and opened my
Un tram che si chiama Desiderio
text to keep busy.

“Che cos'è? Che fai?”
An absurdly beautiful adolescent girl was leaning over my script. Her boobs were touching my forearm! She wanted to know what I had brought. What play is that? Why are you doing it? Can I hear you do it? You need a little more eyeliner. I have some, you want to borrow it?

Minding one's own business was not part of the deal. I told her about myself, that this was my first audition in Italy. When I mentioned that I was American, a great big
ooooooohhhh
rose up in a wave from the girls. They were wide-eyed and even silent for a moment, until a blonde in spike heels said,
“Vabbò, io me ne vaco a casa!”
They all laughed. An American's here? Maybe I should just go home.

Fortunately, the director had made the same assumptions about American talent that the girl had. As I was singing the very first “I could have daaaanced…” he interrupted me to say that I was cast. God bless Italy! I was emotionally prepared for “Don't call us, we'll call you,” even
“No, grazie.”
And here I was cast without even a callback, and without bringing out Italian Blanche. Kindness of strangers, indeed.

I stayed in Benedetta's old room while the play was in rehearsal. After Benedetta and Mauro's Positano wedding, the newlyweds had moved into an apartment on the first floor of the building where Salva and his parents lived. Some friends warned that living in the same building as parents and in-laws was a recipe for disaster, but others congratulated Benedetta and Mauro on their luck at having a
mamma
just two floors down. Lasagna could be sent up in the elevator. Shirts could be ironed free of charge. When children came, the
nonni,
or grandparents, would be babysitters in residence. An intercom was built in to save on phone bills, for the daily Mamma, do you have an onion? Or, Can I substitute
provola
for
scamorza
cheese in my stuffed peppers?

Raffaella was busy. She now fed not two children but four twentysomethings. When Benedetta asked her mother for lasagna, Raffaella would bake it (remembering to leave out the sausage—Mauro didn't like pork) and then buzz her daughter to say, “It's in the elevator.” So as not to intrude on Benedetta and her new husband, she would not bring the lasagna herself, but would put the hot pan on the floor of the elevator (oh, how that smell would linger! A
ragù
cooked for hours, tiny fried meatballs hidden in the layers of pasta…) and push the button of the floor where her daughter lived. Benedetta would walk out of her apartment to find the elevator doors opening, opening to the smell and the sight of that aluminum-foiled labor of love inside the little lift.

One morning, about a month into rehearsals, I was running out the door of the Avallones' to grab a taxi for the theater, when Raffaella told me that she had made a
pizza di scarola
for my snack. I had to go, I was already late, I told her, to no avail. Raffaella had to make sure that the focaccia
-
like pizza was properly packaged. The director could wait.

By the time I made it out the door, I was majorly, unjustifiably tardy. In addition, all of downtown was in gridlock. As I sat in the taxi, watching the meter ticking away, I asked the driver if there was a strike or a demonstration. Yes, he told me, it was the demonstration of illegal aliens, and it would block traffic the entire morning. Policemen were escorting the African, Bangladeshi, and Southeast Asian demonstrators in an attempt to keep some kind of order. I wondered: but if they are illegal…and these are cops…

The demonstration would not be a viable excuse—I was now disastrously tardy. I had been late for rehearsal once before, a matter of about fifteen minutes, and had expected to discreetly join the rest of the cast, score in hand and causing not a ripple (maybe just mouthing
Scusa!
). Instead, the director screamed,
“Chi sei!”
Who are you? as soon as I entered the room.

It confused me. Did he really not know who I was? Granted, I was not the lead. Nor was I an important supporting character. But we had been rehearsing the musical for almost a month, six days a week, and there were only about eighteen members of the cast. So I would have liked to think that the director, Tonino Reale, knew who I was. He had cast me, after all.

Many international theater professionals have not heard of the Neapolitan director Tonino Reale. He is an actor/director/narcissistic tyrant who bears a striking resemblance, physically and temperamentally, to Rumpelstiltskin. He has been known to jump onstage during performances, whisper “You suck” to the lead, and play the role for what remains of the show. He is usually wearing a black T-shirt printed with nonsense English phrases like
GOING STRONG UNIVERSITY
. When he sings, a sort of hoarse, screaming sound that disregards notes and rhythm, he totally blows out his voice (which is already suffering from the pack of cigarettes he smokes each day). For curtain call, he likes to keep coming back onstage for applause until all of the audience has left. Sometimes as many as seven times. Needless to say, he has not been nominated for any Italian Tonys.

That's why I was more than a little tense in the taxi on the way to the Teatro Bellini. I had some idea how the ogre would react to my being thirty minutes late. When I arrived, I braced myself for the worst. I entered the theater and found the actors doing some blocking on the stage while Tonino surfed the Internet on his laptop in one of the ornate boxes that had been reserved for royalty two centuries ago.