STAGE REVIEW : Italian Fare Without the Spice

Everything pointed to an evening of happily ever after: Eduardo de Filippo’s very funny Neapolitan play “Filumena” (on which was based the very funny movie “Marriage, Italian Style”), staged by savvy director David Galligan, with the unflappable Karen Kondazian terrorizing the neighborhood in the title role. A confluence of talents made in heaven?

More like purgatory. The ingredients certainly are there at the Court Theatre (where the show is running, and which also happens to be one of Los Angeles’ more attractive smaller houses), but someone neglected to mix and stir. Or at least didn’t mix and stir enough.

We start with Filumena and her lover of 25 years, Don Domenico, quarreling over the fact that he wants to throw her over for a younger woman--unleashing World War III. It takes them all three acts to resolve their differences and the production, not unlike the warring partners, takes at least as long to hit its stride.

Let’s face it: There isn’t much there to begin with. Filumena, the ex-prostitute with the big mouth and the heart of gold, is about to be discarded like an old shoe by her chauvinistic common-law husband, Don Domenico (Jorge Rivera). She must think on her feet. How can she win him back and make sure she keeps him? Partly by exercising squatters’ rights and mostly by dangling an unexpected carrot under his turned up nose.

Filumena may not have personal property beyond her well-endowed physical attributes, but she does have three sons Don Domenico knows nothing about, one of whom--as she now delights in telling him--is his. Which one? That’s Filumena’s trump card. The rest of the play is dedicated to tormenting Don Domenico until he decides to take on all three by marrying their mother.

It’s a sweet, simple, exasperating idea, that De Filippo embellished by drenching it in a boisterous Neapolitan atmosphere, milking the fiery Southern Italian temperament for all its worth, and giving the wily underdog--Filumena--the distinctly upper hand. Guess who wins in the end.

The “seconds” in this duel of wits and vocal chords are Don Domenico’s huffing and puffing henchman, Alfredo (Ernest Sarracino, who created the role on Broadway in 1980), and Filumena’s trouble-shooting elderly protegee, Rosalia (Argentina Brunetti). The sworn villains are Don Domenico’s younger intended, Diana (an insinuating Gina Gallego), and her untrustworthy lawyer (Milton James). They lose.

It all should have worked like gangbusters in the niftily overstated Italianate setting by Deborah Raymond and Dorian Vernacchio--an expansively high-ceilinged circular room that opens onto the Court’s natural courtyard. But from the start, the timing keeps missing its beats, the angers are overworked, the Neapolitan fire keeps needing to be fanned and, time and again, this comedy slides off the track.

Just why this happens lies in a misplaced gentility that grips the cast. Sarracino and Brunetti go through the right motions without the right spirited emotions. Rivera is too distinguished for the philandering Don and his yelling and screaming remain inappropriately dignified. Kondazian, too, is uncharacteristically subdued--not quiet, but not brash or comfortable in Filumena’s skin. Where is this woman’s bravura or her checkered past?

Only when the three grown sons enter the picture do things begin to pick up. These are gentle, motivated young men who quite undo the hopelessly flustered Domenico. And the actors playing them give distinct and winning performances: Tom Astor as the elegant Umberto, Joseph Fidelibus as the shy Riccardo and Nathan Holland as the married Michele. Rivera, too, is better equipped to handle the transformation and torment that overtake their “father,” as he wonders which of the three is his own flesh and blood.

But the production has trouble shaking a superimposed sense of travelogue (“And now, folks, here we are in Naples . . . “). It is as if director Galligan went for the trappings when he couldn’t quite get the performances out of his principal actors. Is it that Americans, however much descended they may be from Europeans, cannot match them, rowdiness for rowdiness? Unlikely. For one thing, the production does come together in a noisy third act exchange between Filumena and her dressmaker/confidante, Teresina (played on all the right notes by Francesca Vetrano, whose name suggests she knows a thing or two about being Italian). Vetrano finalmente breaks the ice.

Unfortunately, it’s very late by then. Comedy is a fragile thing, farcical comedy even more so, and ethnic farce--which is so dependent on flavor--nearly impossible. This is apparently a case in point. Perhaps as the actors warm up to their roles. . . ? Perhaps. But that’s pure speculation.

At 722 N. La Cienega Blvd. in West Hollywood, Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays 3 and 7 p.m., until July 15. $15-$25; (213) 466-1767.