MARIO
MARIO, One-Eyed Man Productions in association with Hayes Theatre Co, 9-12 July 2014. Photos: archive pix of Mario Lanza.
Take a tenor with a voice so glorious it will make your heart bleed; take a musician whose creative ability with words and music is matched only by his piano artistry and what you have is Mario - conceived and performed by Phil Scott and Blake Bowden.
Mario Lanza was a singing superstar of the 1950s - an American-Italian singer who made the successful cross-over before anyone ever knew such a thing existed. He was born with that rarest and often most fragile thing - the perfect romantic tenor voice - and he and everyone around him exploited it to death.
At a time when romance and beautiful, easy-listening but classy music were at a premium - post the horrors of WW2 - he was a pop star, a movie star and, if he’d wanted to, he could have been the purely operatic forerunner of Pavarotti - the greatest ever pop-tenor who was inspired by Lanza to take up his own brilliant career.
In ambition however, he was definitely more American than Italian: he wanted fame and fortune rather than the adoration of the opera world. When MGM mogul Louis B Mayer came to call, Lanza was more than happy to sign on to “sing em muck” - as Nellie Melba called the popular arias and tunes preferred by the masses to grand opera.
As deftly scripted by Phil Scott, the brief - 38 year - life of Mario Lanza is told in a series of spare yet colourful vignettes, punctuated by glorious music delivered by Bowden. Directed by Chris Parker and simply focused around a standing microphone and a grand piano, Mario is a terrific example of cabaret-theatre - rich in story and richer in performance quality.
Blake Bowden is vocally well able to portray Lanza - one of the great singers whose own crowning moment was to portray Enrico Caruso in MGM’s biopic The Great Caruso - and Bowden carries this tremendous vocal burden with charm and ease. When the show goes on the road however - which it surely should - they should probably think about adding a fat suit to Bowden's costume range; it would help when the talk is all of how the tenor regularly ballooned to unfilmable and visually unacceptable portliness.
For those in the audience who remember Mario Lanza and those whose mothers (primarily) swooned over his endlessly played recordings, Mario will be a joyous yet melancholy trip down memory lane. For those who have never heard of him and think they care less, it will be an amazing and electrifying revelation.
Lanza came from Brooklyn, ate too much, drank too much, dieted too much and died too young. In between times he sang like an angel and did not behave like one at all. Altogether, it’s great material for an absorbing 70-minute show and as performed by these two excessively gifted men - it’s a killer. Not to be missed.
