Napoli, Brooklyn Review

Park Theatre – until 13 July 2019

Reviewed by Claire Roderick

3***

Inspired by a plane crash that happened in her own mother’s Brooklyn neighbourhood in 1960, Meghan Kennedy’s family drama looks at the effect such a traumatic event could have on one Italian family. Father Nic (Robert Cavanah), belittled and frustrated at his lack of status in New York, takes his anger out on his wife Luda (Madeleine Worrall) and his three daughters Tina (Moira Goodwin), Vita (Georgia May Foote) and Francesca (Hannah Bristow). The first act ends with the plane crash and is crammed with background for the three sisters and Luda. Unfortunately, it is all very stereotypical and unrelentingly melodramatic, with characters using the loudest voice possible to talk at each other punctuated by mealtimes where Nic gets angry and shouts, accompanying each bitter sentence with a thump on the table. Luda becomes a caricature of the long-suffering Italian mama as the play progresses, and we find out that Tina left school early to work in a factory to help support the family, Vita is in a convent after attacking her father while protecting younger sister Francesca, and Francesca is planning on running away to France with her girlfriend.

As well as the death and destruction that affects the neighbourhood, Nic has an epiphany and a miraculous change of character in the second act, although this doesn’t last long. This is not explained, rather the script concentrates more on insults and grudges when there could be much more communicated to the audience by silence and gestures from the talented cast. Cavanah is most terrifying when he’s not spouting Nic’s hackneyed lines, while Bristow and Goodwin impress with their energetic but nuanced performances. In fact, the entire cast impresses, it’s just that the way the characters are written, they begin to blend into each other in their loud and never-ending misery.

It’s all just a bit too much, the theatrical equivalent of being force-fed 10 courses of pasta. There is an interesting and emotional story here, it’s just buried under layers of cliché, melodrama and onions.