When it comes to performing his signature one-man play, Chazz Palminteri is a made man. After 800 performances of “A Bronx Tale,” this genial yet imposing showbiz icon has every word, every stride, every gunshot and dramatic handclap down cold.
***1/2 one-man play
Palminteri was on fire Wednesday night on the Ellie Caulkins Opera House stage — though his audience was in a bit of a deep freeze.
There’s an old legend that producers will keep a theater cold to keep audiences from nodding off. No chance of that here, so no need to keep the room temperature lower than the year of your plot (’60).
Palminteri is a friendly guy who instantly makes you feel like he’s just invited all 2,200 of you to pull up your chair with him at the bar. “Do I gotta story for you!”
He does. Palminteri doesn’t just perform his semi-autobiographical memory play; he prowls the stage with uncanny precision and purpose. Hanging on the corner of 187th and Belmont, Palminteri inhabits 18 characters while telling us about the 9-year-old who won’t rat after he’s seen the local mob boss commit a murder. So Sonny takes young Calogero under his wing, to the chagrin of the boy’s bus-driver father.
For years, the boy is torn between two worlds and two men: one teaching him a love of hard work, the other the difference between love and fear (fear lasts longer).
Palminteri’s much-honored 1989 script, turned four years later into a hit film, is taut, economical and colorful storytelling from start to finish. It’s also a little cheesy and sentimental, which is how it breaks the mold from the Italian crime genre.
You might think “A Bronx Tale” treads on too-familiar territory, but it actually preceded “My Cousin Vinnie,” “GoodFellas,” “The Sopranos” and “Jersey Boys.” And while much of “The Godfather” took place on estates, “A Bronx Tale” takes place in the streets. It’s really a very family-friendly story through a boy’s coming of age — most poignantly the racism he encounters (from both sides) when his first great love turns out to be for a black girl.
Though you likely know the story, Palminteri is the guy we all know who never tires of telling the same joke. He puts every bit of energy he’s got into telling his tale well.
Theater types will appreciate the acting skills on display. Palminteri crisply distinguishes his characters, and he so descriptively pulls off several chaotic group scenes that your imagination might fool you into thinking there’s more than one actor on the stage.
If the tale is light, it’s on the imperfect father character that Robert De Niro so beautifully fleshed out in the film. And one can’t help but want to know more about the tale’s ultimate triggerman.
Still, it’s quick, funny and sweetly accented with doo- wop tunes that make you nostalgic for a simpler time that was not so simple at all.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“A Bronx Tale”
Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver Performing Arts Complex. Written by and starring Chazz Palminteri. Directed by Jerry Zaks. Through June 21. 90 minutes, no intermission. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Sunday. $20-$80. 303-893-4100, King Soopers or