Stage Dragon: Napoli, Brooklyn – Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Published on: 14 May, 2019
Updated on: 14 May, 2019

Francesca (Hannah Bristow) stands up to her father (Robert Cavanah) – Photo Marc Brenner

By Alice Fowler

Napoli, Brooklyn, playing at the Yvonne Arnaud all this week, is the story of an immigrant Italian family in New York, dancing to Gene Vincent’s Be-Bop-A-Lula while the American Dream drifts from their grasp.

…bold and compelling viewing

Nic and Luda Muscolino are first-generation arrivals, yet to assimilate and adapt to their new culture. Their three daughters are different: American-born, spirited and fun-loving, with passions and secrets of their own. As tensions rise – and rise they do – playwright Meghan Kennedy explores many aspects of the immigrant experience.

On the edge: Robert Cavanah as domineering husband and father, Nic Muscolino – Photo Marc Brenner

Nic – superbly played by Robert Cavanah – is a bullying patriarch who has lost control. Tormented and short-tempered, he returns home blackened from his job Tarmac-ing the roads. His wife Luda, meanwhile, hankers for the dirt roads of her childhood; as does the Irish butcher, who slips her the choicest cuts of meat and dreams that they are stitched together.

Set in 1960, the play is loosely based on stories told by Kennedy’s mother. Halfway through a life-shattering event occurs – too central to the plot to reveal here – which drastically alters the characters’ lives.

Coming direct from Broadway, and prior to a London run, the play boasts excellent performances from a cast of eight, six of whom are women.

Georgia May Foote as Vita – Photo Marc Brenner

Georgia May Foote, well known for her role as Katy Armstrong in Coronation Street, stars as Vita, the middle sister. Before the play starts, she has been violently assaulted by her father and sent off to a convent. Once the liveliest of the three, she must now reshape her relationships with her sisters and her parents. There are tender, sometimes painful scenes between Vita and her elder sister Tina (Mona Goodwin), who has missed out on an education to go to work, and her younger sister Francesca (a luminous Hannah Bristow).

Francesca – influenced, we may conclude, by her father’s oft-expressed desire for sons not daughters – identifies as a boy. She is drawn to the butcher’s daughter, Connie: a relationship unthinkable in this setting, at this time. Their mutual attraction is convincingly portrayed by Bristow and Laurie Ogden as Connie.

There are further insights into immigrant life in the character of Celia (Gloria Onitiri), a young black woman who is friends with Tina. In scenes that recall the prejudice of Small Island, Nic cannot accept Celia nor even meet her eye. Instead, even when she joins his table for Christmas dinner, he looks only at her shoes.

Celia (Gloria Onitiri) and Tina (Mona Goodwin) make friends – Photo Marc Brenner

Director Lisa Blair draws out every ounce of misery and passion as the characters battle with their lot and try, often unsuccessfully, to change their lives. At times the story feels like a patchwork of stories, cleverly knitted yet lacking real narrative drive. Nonetheless this Original Theatre Company production makes bold and compelling viewing.

The play opens with Luda (Madeleine Worrall) holding raw onions to her eyes, in an effort to make herself cry. By the end her emotions, and the audience’s, flow freely.

Napoli, Brooklyn continues at the Yvonne Arnaud until Saturday May 18. Box Office tel. (01483) 44 00 00 or see: www.yvonne-arnaud.co.uk