Sicilian Play Brings Back Memories

How you gonna keep him down on the farm once he’s seen Rome and felt the “continental air”?

For Sicilian bachelor and land owner Don Cola, the answer is simple. Bring a piece of that sophistication back home with him in the person of a beautiful singer, who might just be willing to, well, become his, if the family doesn’t get too upset.

It’s an old-fashioned plot, with some commedia dell’arte twists and turns and a fascinating theatrical history. Under its current title of “The Sicilian Bachelor,” it’s playing at West Hollywood’s Tiffany Theatre.

The original title was “L’Aria del Continente.” The original playwright, Nino Martoglio, was given the plot by famed Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello, who was too busy to write it for actor Angelo Musco. From 1912 on, Musco played it across Europe for crowned heads and many in fedoras or peasant caps. It was a classic.

Actor Lou Cutell plays Don Cola, an aging Lothario, in this production, and was the guiding light in its adaptation. Tracy Scoggins of TV’s “Dynasty” is his gorgeous Roman import, Millian Black.

Cutell first heard parts of the original four-hour script at his father’s knee. Papa was Sicilian and also an actor.

“My father,” says Cutell, “spoke broken English. We’re talking about the ‘30s because there was no television. We’d sit around the table, and he’d entertain everybody, reading all the parts. As a 6-year-old kid, I absorbed the plot. It sort of became part of me.”

Those are memories that didn’t come back to him for many years.

“About six years ago,” he says, “I got involved with a Sicilian group called Arba Sicula, the Dawn of Sicily, and they asked me, knowing that I speak Sicilian, to do the last act of this play. I thought, what a fun thing to do to keep up my Sicilian, to keep it going. My mother and my aunt helped me with the lines, coaching me. I said, ‘Mom, why are these lines coming so easily? It’s amazing.’ ”

His mother reminded him of his first exposure to the play.

The Arba Sicula production cast mainly amateurs because “to get people who spoke Sicilian, we had to pick anybody. One of the people who saw it, Tino Trischitta, said, ‘Lou, why don’t we translate it?’ I said, ‘It couldn’t work translated.’ So I did six pages and read it back. After six Broadway shows, I kind of knew the rhythm that comedy should have.” Cutell forged ahead. “It took me six months, with my mother’s help, my aunt’s help.”

Trischitta and Norma Helms also aided with the adaptation, which was eventually cut down to the couple of hours it now plays.

When Cutell first tackled theater in New York, he did it as Louis Cutelli.

“I could not get arrested with that name because in those days, they would look at the casting and say, ‘Cutelli. We don’t need an Italian.’ As soon as I changed my name to Cutell, took off the ‘i,’ I got five Broadway shows in a row, playing Jewish roles. But I’m really Sicilian. I love being what I am, but I know one makes the money the other way.”

Scoggins, his leading lady, is probably best known for her role of Monica Colby, first in “The Colbys,” then two years later in “Dynasty.”

Cutell says he’s thrilled that everyone connected with this production of “The Sicilian Bachelor” is Sicilian.

Scoggins? Sicilian?

“Yes,” Texas-born Scoggins says with a rippling laugh. “I am. Where Lou changed his name for his career, mine got changed further back for careers in politics in the South. Being Sicilian wasn’t the best way to move up in politics in Texas. It’s a very sort of Southern Baptist mentality there. People with vowels on the end of their names were not accepted. My father’s side is Italian.”

Does she speak Italian?

“No,” she admits. “But I lived in Europe for a while, so in about six languages, I can say, ‘It’s late; I have to go.’ ”

She did study French in school, to the point of reading Moliere in French, and admits to a facility with languages. Cutell is enthusiastic about her mastery of the difficult Sicilian dialect.

A good bit of Sicilian remains in the script but, Cutell says, its every use is explained. There’s also a glossary in the program, but the audience doesn’t need it, he says. It reminds him of his early days as an actor, when a Yiddish phrase might not be understood, but the audiences caught the meaning.

“I worked with Leo Fuchs,” he explains, “years ago in my Yiddish days.”

“Before you came out of the closet,” Scoggins quips.

“I played his father when I was 23. They used to get such laughs, and no one understood what they said. It was just the sound.”

Cutell nods wisely when reminded of the old vaudeville saw that if you were going to mention a city, those with a ‘k’ sound always got a laugh, such as Cucamonga and Kankakee. “It’s the same thing,” he says.

Scoggins, who has three films due out in 1992 (“Time Bomb” with Michael Biehn, “Silhouette” with Marc Singer and “Dangerous Toys” with Bentley Mitchum), laughs again, explaining her reasons for being attracted to “The Sicilian Bachelor.”

“The role has these great entrances and exits,” she says. “What more can you ask for? I’ve got these killer entrances and exits. And some of the roles I’ve played in the past are such nice girls, you could get cavities from watching me. Millian is a little more complex than that. The duplicity really attracted me. The bad girl is so much more fun to play.”

For Scoggins, it’s a nice change of pace, something Hollywood doesn’t always allow an actress.

“When I did ‘The Colbys’ and ‘Dynasty’ for three years, they sort of copped early on that I’m a good crier. So my characters were constructed in the throes of woes. When I got home from work, my body didn’t know I was just doing it for money. My body thought I just relived all that pain. It really takes its toll after awhile. It’s more fun to go home with a laugh than reliving funerals.

“It’s amazing in this town how they really want to categorize you. A couple of years after ‘Dynasty,’ I did a TV movie that was a comedy. Then I wanted to do this pilot, and it was also a comedy. Before that, my agent said, ‘Well, they think of you as drama and they don’t want to think of you as comedy.’ I did these two comedies, then suddenly there was this great drama I wanted to do, and he said, ‘Well, they’re saying you’re comedy now.’ You can’t win here.”

“The Sicilian Bachelor” is a happy time for Scoggins. It’s the same for Cutell, who also has two films coming up (“Mistress” with Robert DeNiro and Danny Aiello, and “Last Call for Passenger Fayber” with Sam Waterston).

“It’s the happiest I’ve ever been, to express all that I’m expressing--my acting, the writing. Having listened in Broadway shows--I’ve worked with Neil Simon, Bob Fosse--I kept my mouth shut, because God forbid you say anything, George Abbott will kill you. So you listen, but you couldn’t say a word. Now I can say it. That’s such a relief. Usually there’s such tension. Not here.”

“The Sicilian Bachelor” plays at the Tiffany Theatre, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood , 8 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Ends Jan. 16. Tickets are $18.50 to $20. For information and reservations, call (310) 289-2999.