One man's 'Bronx Tale'

By Georgia Rowe
Special to The Examiner 10/5/08

SAN FRANCISCO – First came the play, then the movie. Now “A Bronx Tale” is back onstage, with its author, Chazz Palminteri, playing all the parts.

On Wednesday at the Golden Gate Theatre, Palminteri’s semi-autobiographical one-man show made its San Francisco debut. The playwright-actor — best known for film roles including “Bullets Over Broadway” — is the principal draw, and the chance to see him working live onstage may justify the ticket price for many fans.

A man of many talents: Chazz Palminteri also starred in the film version of his one-man show, “A Bronx Tale,” as tough-guy Sonny. Courtesy photo

As an evening of theater, though, the 90-minute show (performed without intermission) doesn’t have much new to offer — especially if you’ve seen the 1993 film version of “A Bronx Tale” with Robert De Niro.

First performed in 1989 in Los Angeles and later in New York, the play is a coming-of-age story, with Palminteri — whose full name is Calogero Lorenzo Palminteri — as the central character. He’s 9 years old when the story starts and is growing up in a tough, predominantly Italian neighborhood on East 187th Street in the Bronx. From his stoop, the boy sees it all — thugs, bookies, gangsters and goombahs — and violence is part of the landscape.

A tough guy named Sonny is the neighborhood’s top dog, and Calogero watches him obsessively. One day, he witnesses Sonny shooting a man. When Calogero refuses to “rat” on him, Sonny takes the boy under his wing, names him “C” and becomes a kind of surrogate father. From then on, life becomes a tug of war between good and evil, with Sonny on one side and C’s real dad, a hardworking bus driver, on the other. Eventually, C comes to understand why his father warned him about Sonny — but not before some hard lessons are learned.

The show looks terrific. James Noone’s set efficiently creates the look of the inner city; lighting by Paul Gallo evokes street scenes and the inevitable police presence. Sound design by John Gromada — with bits of doo-wop, pop and soul music — helps establish the era.

Yet the show never comes alive as vibrantly as it should. Palminteri is a likable presence onstage, and his easygoing delivery underscores the humor of many scenes. He’s just not very adept at creating distinct characters. There are 18 characters in the show, but only Calogero and Sonny emerge from the crowd, and Palminteri’s Sonny seems a pale imitation of De Niro’s. The script also tends toward repetition, and a kind of monotony sets in midway through. At its best, “A Bronx Tale” evokes a kind of nostalgia for the 1960s of the playwright’s childhood. As the evening wears on, though, the tale starts to feel like one we’ve heard before.