Ralph Macchio at the June Havoc Theatre

The June Havoc Theatre was filled to capacity for Abingdon Theatre Company’s second production of the 2015-16 season, Charles Messina's world premiere of A Room of My Own, starring Ralph Macchio and Mario Cantone. This intimate, off-Broadway venue was the perfect space for this 90 minute one-act play.

This semi-autobiographical play, about a larger-than-life Italian-American family living in a rundown studio apartment in Greenwich Village, is aptly directed by the playwright himself.

This is a memory play, similar to Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. Messina, like Williams, explores a grown son's recollections of his calculating mother and her struggles to survive in a world that has dealt her a lousy hand. Both playwrights introduce their audiences to their plays by a narrator, who just happens to also be the protagonist, a would-be writer who longs to escape the stifling world of poverty and the dingy, city apartments they inhabit. Both narrators are quick to remind the audience that what they see and hear might not be the whole truth and nothing but the truth, since this is their perception of the past.

However, this is where the similarities between the two plays end. If Williams is the master of poetic language, innuendo, and bittersweet drama, then Messina can be crowned the king of crude, in-your-face, comedic dialogue.

Dotty Morelli, the mother in question in A Room of My Own, with her loud, obnoxious, potty mouth, is no genteel Amanda Wingfield. Dotty, a daughter, wife, mother, and sister, steals, threatens, and gambles her way through life. She butchers the English language with every word and every one of her sentences explodes, as she systematically drops the F-Bomb with her sacrilegious, self-serving, self-pitying tirades. Joli Tribuzio brings this edgy, proud, conniving character to life, and has the audience wincing as she justifies her unscrupulous actions, claiming that even when she’s doing wrong, she’s doing right.

This play takes place Christmastime 1979, the same year that All in the Family aired it’s last episode. Those of us who remember watching All in the Family, when it first aired in 1971, and listening to Archie Bunker’s political incorrect commentaries, his bigotry, and his outbursts, won’t be overly shocked by the language in this play, although the dialogue in A Room of My Own has graphic profanity that prime-time CBS, then and now, would never permit.

Johnny Tammaro gives a strong performance in his role as Peter Morelli, Dotty’s henpecked, unemployed husband, who we soon learn, suffers from a bad case of flatulence and a heart condition. He parades around the dilapidated apartment in an apron, boxer shorts, or pajamas. He’s a likable enough man, except when it comes to any discussions about his dead father and his hoity-toity sister. Convinced that his sister, Jean, screwed him out of his inheritance, he refuses to talk to her, even when she lands on his doorstep. Liza Vann, is very believable in the pivotal role of his estranged sister, a vegetarian, who despises animal cruelty, and yet, she has no qualms about wearing fur.

Ralph Macchio plays the part of the narrator, the Morelli’s grown son, Carl, who’s writing a play based on his family, and even as the playwright, he can't seem to control his dysfunctional family. The ever-youthful Mr. Macchio runs up and down the aisle, trying to escape the painful recollections of his childhood. He makes us like the character of Carl, and we empathize with this college-educated, well-spoken man, who decades later, still struggles to understand his ignorant mother and her unforgivable lack of integrity.

Nico Bustamante is an up and coming young actor, who does a great job portraying Carl's childhood self: A wisecracking boy, who throws up all the time, curses, rants and raves and dreams of having a room of his own, so much so that he even writes a letter to Santa to see what Old St. Nick might do to make his heartfelt wish come true.

Mario Cantone, perhaps best known for his role as Anthony Marentino on Sex in the City, steals the show as the gay, flamboyant, tell-it-like-it-is, Uncle Jackie. He has the audience howling at his crazy antics which include: an opening scene in which he runs around like a lunatic threatening to kill his punk-rock-blasting neighbor with a hammer; a Christmas morning grand entrance donned in a red, fur-lined Santa bathrobe, and a hilarious retelling of how his dead mother comes to haunt him. The highlight of this play has to be when Uncle Jackie rings in the New Year by boogying, bumping, and bopping his way around the room with his niece, Jeannie Morelli, played by Kendra Jain, a feisty, energetic actress.

Just for the record: I personally know the Macchio family, because, once upon a time, I had been a children’s entertainer and performed at many of their children’s parties. (I was sure to say hello to Ralph’s son, Daniel, who was in the audience.) I can honestly say that the soft-spoken, polite, educated Macchio family ain’t nothing like the Morellis. As for Mario Cantone and his clan, I have no clue. You’ll have to chase him down and find out that one for yourself.