Coping With 200 ‘Guests’ a Night : After more than 100 shows, the cast of ‘Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding’ is prepared to confront most any audience

Hardly a night goes by when audience members don’t try to re-set the boundaries of reality for themselves at “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding.”

They spit on napkins and try to rub the age spots off Uncle Luigi’s hands--or pinch his cheeks to pull off the latex. They poke “pregnant” bridesmaid Connie in her belly to test its firmness. They sniff Michael Just’s bourbon bottle for authenticity. They yank up Grandma Vitale’s dress to see if she’s really old.

It’s all par for the course at L.A.’s hippest theater party, the make-believe nuptials of brassy Valentina Vitale and demi-hood Anthony Nunzio. Eight times a week since mid-October, audiences have flocked to the mid-Wilshire Park Plaza Hotel to see the fun--and participate in it.

Created in New York in 1988 by the theater group Artificial Intelligence, the idea was offbeat enough to become a runaway hit. With local grosses now topping $1.75 million, a Saturday matinee is being added beginning April 14. And the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle just voted the group a special award for “reviving the old-fashioned idea of happenings and having some fun with it.”

How do you cope with family tensions and 200 “invited guests” each night?

Although the show’s frame (dialogue, blocking and timing) is set, 70% of “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding” is improvised--which leads to a wild range of connections: sly, strange, confrontational, funny, sweet. After all, weddings bring out everyone’s strongest emotions. And, hey, the champagne is flowing.

If the long-running “Tamara” is a “living movie”--where audiences trek down mansion halls en masse and perch on furniture to silently observe the unfolding story--”Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding” is true participatory theater. Not only do the characters move individually among the audience, they talk to them, react to them, play off them. The result is often a very personal, sometimes challenging, experience.

“A lot of people have difficulty with that line of reality,” said Jacob Harran, 34, who plays 79-year-old Uncle Luigi. “One night I was with a pilot who was celebrating his 40th birthday, and he was talking to me like (I was) his father. It was obvious that he was going through something in his life and needed to be reassured that he was a good parent--and I gave that to him.

“Suddenly, in the middle of all this, he realized he’d been pouring out his heart to me and said, ‘Who are you?’ I said, ‘What’re you talkin’ about? I’m your Uncle Louie.’ ”

Creator Nancy Cassaro (bride Tina) traces her inspiration back five years to the procession of seriocomic, almost archetypal weddings she’d been attending. Loud. Flashy. Wanna-be respectable, billowing in cigarette smoke. Very Italian, very Bronx. Sulky newlyweds, sleazy in-laws, inebriated priests, nerdy photographers, gum-chewing bridesmaids, morose ex-boyfriends, easy ladies on the make.

For this three-hour, every-move-on-display “wedding,” it means characterizations that go a lot deeper than accents and line-readings. Harran and Denise Moses (87-year-old Grandma Nunzio) not only cosmetically transform their bodies, but accommodate their speech, posture and energy. “Sometimes, people pull us out of our chairs,” Moses said dryly. “Now, as ourselves, we could dance all night. But as old people, we’re committed to staying feeble, so our only alternative is to fall. And that’s wonderful, ‘cause it scares people so much. Again, we’ve thrown their reality: ‘Is the actor hurt? Is the character hurt?’ ”

Mark Nassar (bridegroom Tony) enjoys not having to submerge his personality or physicality into a character--too much. “I try to be as close to myself as possible,” he said. “Put on a thick accent, forget that I have a college degree. And I’ve used a lot of friends in the Bronx (as models).”

Roaming the Pompeii Court during the “reception,” Nassar and the cast schmooze freely, their movements and conversation spontaneous yet their timing is not; a dance band’s music cues order the action.

In fact, in spite of the freewheeling atmosphere, very little is left to chance. Susan Varon, who plays Tina’s mother, takes a memorable spill near the end of the evening, seeming to crack her head on the floor. “Acting,” the actress said briskly, slapping her hands together to simulate the sound. The group of men that rush to her aid are not impromptu, either (except for the occasional onlooker taken in by the action). Varon expects them and counts on them. On cue. This is an ensemble show.

Within that ensemble, of course, come 16 wildly individual characterizations--and equally fastidious documentation. Harran really speaks fluent Italian. Mark Campbell (who, with Jack Fris, grew his hair long for their roles as druggies) plays the fiance of mother-to-be Connie, and often chats about kids and pregnancy with audience members over dinner. “We know about Lamaze classes, amniocentesis, sonograms, all of that,” he said proudly. “So she’s not taken off guard when someone asks, ‘Did you get the amnio?’ ”

Unfortunately, such good-natured willingness to play along isn’t always the rule.

“There are certain people you’re just going to relate to--you can tell by their spirit--and you’ll go to them,” Nassar admitted. “But it’s just as important to say, ‘I hit these tables every night.’ That means you have to go to people. You don’t start picking and choosing, leaving people out. So if I see someone who doesn’t look like he’s having a good time, I go right up to him: ‘Hey, whatsa matter? You havin’ a fight with your wife? Listen, cheer up. I got a load of VCRs comin’ in tomorrow.’ ”

Altuner, who plays usher Dominick, enjoys it best when audiences graze over the reality line, and opt to stay there. “I had a psychologist who engaged me--as Dominick--in conversation about what was wrong with my relationship with my girlfriend,” he said. “Now, I know what’s going on, and he knows too. It’s the most theatrical experience you can have. Also, my character’s a male chauvinist, so it’s great when women come up and argue with me--as long as they know that what I’m saying isn’t coming from me, James.”

Some theatergoers, however, just can’t resist a confrontation.

One night, Cassaro was sitting behind the bandstand, smoking pot (actually, herbs--more on this later) with a gaggle of female audience members, when a fellow strolled up and asked when the show’s replacement auditions were being held.

“I said, ‘Open call? Whattaya talkin’ about?’ ‘I’m an actor,’ he said. ‘Did you have a call last week?’ ” After a few more rounds, the provocateur lost patience. “So you’re not going to tell me anything?,” he snarled. “Fine. I’ll remember this.” Cassaro shook her head. “It was like, how dare I not drop character for him.”

“It only takes a couple of jerks,” Nassar shrugged. “For the most part, the audience goes (along with us). I find it’s usually older people who don’t want to connect. They’re used to going to theater and watching a play, so they get perturbed.”

Harran, too, often feels that seniors--especially those close to Louie’s age--are uncomfortable with his presence: “I think they see themselves, and it’s hard.” But young folks can also be problematic. “We get a lot of people like Dominick,” noted Altuner. “They say, ‘This isn’t very funny. It’s just like my wedding.’ ”

Part of that familiarity may stem from the matter-of-fact inclusion of drugs (marijuana and cocaine) in the show. Cassaro offers no apologies for their presence.

“It’s reality,” the actress said bluntly. And yet, she adds, several of the play’s characters don’t do drugs--or see any of the (phony) drug use during the reception. The same goes for audience members. Just as in real life, older people and kids spot little, if any, of the drug by-play. And for those theatergoers who are exposed to (or even participate in) it, Nassar believes there’s nothing glamorous in the presentation.

“We don’t say, ‘Use drugs,’ ” he stressed. “In fact, drugs are the demise of the wedding.”

Occasionally, they are the demise of an audience member’s fun too. Although Cassaro reacted incredulously to the notion that drug use in the 1990s could be shocking to anyone, there have been isolated complaints that the introduction of cocaine into the show soured what had until then seemed like such an “innocent” affair. Once, a famous sports star’s wife was so incensed, thinking the actors were taking real drugs, that she walked out. Director Larry Pellegrini’s assurance that the drugs were fake was only partially mollifying.

Cassaro takes such occasional setbacks in stride. “I think it’s the immediacy of it all,” she theorized of the show’s success. “People come in and right away get involved with what’s going on; there’s no time to sit back and judge it or to remove yourself from it. Plus you’re acting with us a little bit. Even if you’re just playing yourself, you’re playing.”