Norman Siopis was most self-revealing in the show as Jerry, the proprietor of an Italian neighborhood bar. Jerry, who looks to be about 30, has been secretly in love with his best friend's wife - get this - for ten years. Amazingly, Susan Stout, who played the eponymous incuba of Jerry's dreams, actually looked the part.
The really interesting Michael R. Gior-dano didn't have enough to do as Mikey (an "ass and leg man" with premature ejaculation problems); but he got to say some of the author's nicest lines as when, describing a hooker, Mikey splays his legs and says "I'd love to give her half a C-note and say, 'Have lunch!'"
It fell to Peter J. Santora, who plays Frankie, to indulge the most tedious of the script's repetitions. After returning from Vegas expecting to win "a bundle that could choke a moose" (he keeps bringing back that moose!), his cohorts want to know what happened.
"It's a long story," Frankie begins - for the third time.
"We've got the time," someone replies.
No we don't.
Most authentic in the play was Doug Dewitt as Tony. Dewitt actually was a welterweight champion of the world, and sometimes you felt his hands and fingers could literally unleash love or commit murder. Since Dewitt is not an actor (yet), he may have been too terrified to rouse his real energy in the quiet parts. But in the hands of a film director one felt Dewitt "coulda been a contender."
The set was nice and neat and stocked with bar displays; but it didn't benefit from much better lighting attention (from Frank Vallorosi and George Torres) than what you get from hardware stores.
The actors mainly wore street clothes which were spruced up with imaginative touches, such as Tony's stockingless feet in expensive shoes. (The "costume consultant" was Nicole Hartofiles.)
Charles Rigler, who did sound, should have been advised better how to simulate ringing telephones; but Italian recordings added nice touches pre-show and during intermission.
The play finally climaxes its sexual pipe dreams with an obligatory revelation (which the careless director had us watch from the back of an upstaged gut-spiller's head). The surprise was so completely preposterous, given the casting choices and what went before, that a serious epidemic of squirming and giggling affected half the audience.
Copyright 1999 Marshall Yaeger