Not without bickering before opening the door, Mary and Angelo Lo Presto arrive in the plushest of rose and green suites in the Ritz Carleton where their son Michael will be married that evening to Dr. David Schwartz. Mary is bent on control of the situation. Traditional Angelo is flustered: Is Michael the bride or the groom?
Angelo has bonded more with plumbing than parenting. Before he can learn about where the other parents are and the cost of everything, a hysterically tearful Michael bursts in. His sweetheart has bypassed his order of decorative purple flowers for white (that he considers a non-color) and, even worse, red roses. This leads through roundabout recollections to the one that caused Michael his life's greatest suffering: a bullying attack on him in a Little League game led to fixations connected with religious symbols and colors. Neither parent could restore his peace. And in odd ways, the incident also led each parent to engage in a single affair. Revelations and recriminations now threaten to be devastating.
Of course, David has a professional reason as well as loving reason for the color substitution. Michael can rely on his mother to try to shield him from unhappiness, just as she Saran Wraps everything against germs. There are certainly important transitions for the men to make. Following their plights and Mary's tugs at the heart but also doesn't fail to produce laugh-out-loud humor! Michael Kevin Baldwin makes Michael Lo Presto pitiably funny. Gil Brady's David does well as his Freudian straight man but not without expressing well some light, less swishy humor of his own. Marina Re couldn't be better as a loving if controlling mother and wife who thinks she knows best about everyone's relationships and how they should be -- and is often right. Re and Paul D'Amato have full command of Italian-American, blue-collar traditional thought, language and mannerisms. He manages a wonderful transition in the outward manifestation of Angelo's feelings. Sara J. Hinkley's clothing designs perfectly reflect their personalities. Director Janet Mitchko shows she and playwright de Matteo really know these more-human-than-stereotypical characters, whom they make us happy to accept, like, appreciate.
