OCTOBER 29, 2009 – In movies—Four Weddings and a Funeral comes to mind—wacky things happen after a bride marches down the aisle. In Four Weddings, Hugh Grant changes his mind at the altar, and the bride-not-to-be punches him in the face.
I’ve never been to a real wedding where something like that has happened. Have you? I’ll just say it—I think that would be awesome. You’d get to go to an open-bar dinner reception…and keep the present.
For anyone with a demented sense of humor or a hunger for nuptial-related drama, consider Joey and Maria’s Comedy Italian Wedding. It’s an interactive play in which audience members are guests at the big event. It runs on selected Fridays at downtown’s Culy Warehouse.
The couple (notice they are not described as a happy couple) are Guiseppe Antonio Gnocchi and Maria Angelina Cavatelli. Each has a bridal party with an assortment of hang-ups, social deviations and names like Al Dente and Connie Calzone. There are bouffant-styled mothers, a medicine-bottle-swilling priest who’s dressed like the pope and one uninvited guest—Joey’s ex-girlfriend, Viola Vermicelli.
Throughout the evening, the machinations of a real wedding are performed: the vows, the dances, the squabbling among in-laws. A buffet of salad, pasta and chewable chicken is served to all guests, and the full bar is reasonably priced.
You’d never catch me doing The Chicken Dance or a Congo Line at a real wedding; here, it’s all part of the price of admission ($60 plus tax).
Would I recommend this show to everybody? No. But the crowd I attended with loved nearly every minute of it. There were couples in the audience who rarely get out—and this was a grand respite. A pair of actual bachelorette parties also came to celebrate with Joey and Maria.
The show is campy and over-the-top. Feeling urbane and hip, I laughed out loud for the first half hour, not necessarily at the jokes, but with a head-shaking realization that this kind of a show actually exists, and people pay to see it.
But if your idea of a good wedding is a public comedy of errors, pay your respects to the Gnocchis and the Cavatellis.
