“A Bronx Tale”

Chazz Palminteri (Book); Alan Menken (Music); Glenn Slater (Lyrics)

Based on real life occurrences, A Bronx Tale is a coming of age musical about the life of its writer, Chazz Palminteri, ages nine to seventeen.  Set in the 1960s Italian and African-American neighborhoods of New York – two neighborhoods close in distance but separated by an invisible, dare-not-cross wall – A Bronx Tale reflects the organized crime and the racial strife that ruled the ‘hoods of the Bronx in the ‘60s while also pitting a boy’s love of his father against the boy’s adoration of a local crime boss.  When in his teen years he also becomes infatuated with a local African-American girl, the formula is complete for a teenager’s coming to terms of who he really wants to be and whose values and advice are going to govern his life.  Starting as a one-man play before turning into a movie, moving to Broadway as a one-man show, and finally being adapted into a full-blown musical, the end result that is now on tour and at SHN’s Golden Gate Theatre is best described by the now-grown Calogero himself as he sings in the opening “Belmont Avenue,”

“This is A Bronx Tale, and it’s my story,

The one that shattered the world that I knew.”

After an introduction to the Italian neighborhood that is lined with the stoops of its working class inhabitants and with establishments like Madonna’s Bakery, Dino’s Pastry Shop, and Mike’s Deli, a nine-year-old Calogero receives advice from his hard-working, bus-driving dad, Lorenzo, to “Look to Your Heart.”  As they discuss their favorite topic, Yankees baseball, Richard H. Blake as Lorenzo sings in a beautifully sincere, totally authentic voice his oft-repeated advice to his son, “Look to your heart; being a man means you take what you got and you use it … Just use your talents and don’t you dare waste it.” 

That fatherly refrain begins to take a back seat in young Calogero’s life after he meets local, crime kingpin, Sonny.  Their introduction occurs after the youngster witnesses Sonny gunning down a guy with a bat who is beating up on Sonny’s friend, with Calogero later deciding not to finger Sonny with the murder during a police line-up.  Calogero quickly becomes Sonny’s protégé and good-luck boy; and that new status is immediately noticed by the entire neighborhood who all now go out of their way to give him high-fives and call him “C,” leading Calogero to sing with much charismatic machismo (at least for a nine-year-old) “I Like It.”  Frankie Leoni (who alternates the role with Shane Pry) is a winner in the role of Young C, especially coming alive with kid-filled glee as he helps Sonny win big bucks in a crap game, rolling all the right numbers while excitedly singing “Roll ‘Em” in full voice with Sonny and his gangster buddies.

By the time Calogero grows into a seventeen-year-old (now played by Joey Barreiro), he is well on his way to becoming another of Sonny’s gang of hoodlums, albeit the most special among them.  With names like Coffee Cake (i.e., acne-marred in the face), Eddie Mush (i.e., always gambles and loses); Tony-Ten-to-Two (i.e., how he points his toes); and Jojo the Whale (pretty obvious where that name comes from), these are certainly not the companions Calogero’s father wants for him. 

Counter to Lorenzo’s advice to his son about using his heart and not wasting his talent, Sonny advises C in a song about his hero, “Nicky Machiavelli” that “you gotta choose fear or love, kid.”  C listens carefully as the tall, lanky Sonny (Joe Barbara) sings in a voice and manner reminiscent of an entertainer in a late-night, basement nightclub, “Love can always disappear, but fear is cash in the bank, kid, fear puts gas in your tank.”  Sonny is a mixture of joking leader of his grown-up gang, doting mentor of his boy C, and ready-at-any-moment to be a ruthless killer with no conscience.  Through it all, Joe Barbara’s portrayal wickedly lures us in to like him and want to know more about him, even when we know deep down we should be abhoring Sonny and the influence he is having on Calogero.

Like many teenagers, Calogero also makes decisions and friends that his elders do not support.  Forming his own teen gang of Sally Slick (Sean Bell), Handsome Nick (Giovanni Digabreile), and Crazy Mario (Joseph Sammour), C receives more advice, this time about protecting neighborhood territories and finding the right girl in a doo-wop blending of “Ain’t It the Truth.”  But when Calogero dares to look twice and meet an African-American girl at his school named Jane (Brianna-Marie Bell), both he and she begin to hear from those around them, “You’re just out of your head if you think this ever could be” (“Out of Your Head”).

The conflicting pulls on Calogero’s/C’s life only increase as he tries to be tough and rough with his questionable pals, loyal to his Sonny, a possible boyfriend with Jane, and still somewhat welcome in his own home (where his father is particularly at the peak of disappointment and worry).  As one might expect, bad things happen; but out of bad, lessons can be learned.  In one of the better moments of the evening, Sonny surprises both C and us with his advice in regard to Jane as Joe Barbara’s Sonny shows a different and unexpected side of the gangster while earnestly and with some humor singing in his Bronx-rich way about not letting “One of the Great Ones” get away.

Overall, the original Chazz Palminteri story is fairly compelling as a memoir of a boy’s journey through some precarious paths, given the roadblocks he encounters of compelling crime, inbred prejudice, and natural teen rebelliousness.  In its musical format, the score and songs of Alan Menken do not do much to come even within near distance to those of Jersey Boys, Guys and Dolls, or West Side Story – other musicals whose legacies echo in this musical’s various songs.  None of Menken’s tunes are ones that anyone is likely to wake up the next day humming; and even more damning, the rhyming lyrics of Glenn Slater are for the most part, bland, predictable, and unmemorable.  All that said, there is nothing totally unpleasant in the ‘60s’-sounding music and songs, often sung in the close harmonies one remembers from the boy and girl bands of the time.  But, there is also nothing remarkable.

Delivery by this cast is overall respectable, with the performance of Richard H. Blake as Lorenzo reigning as the brightest spot among the soloists.  The choreography designed by Sergio Trujillo smacks of the moves of back-up singers and dancers for Motown shows of the 1960s, with much grooving of bodies along with jerks, leaps, and splits, and multiple ways of expressing emotions and rhythms with hands and arms.  All such numbers are fun to watch in the moment and too quickly forgotten by the end of the show.

As co-directed by Robert De Niro and Jerry Zaks, A Bronx Tale moves at a pace that actually makes the evening seem shorter than its efficient two-hour running time.  Costumes by William Ivey Long along with hair and wigs by Paul Huntley provide live portraits of the styles of the 1960s, especially recalling the ethnically different communities of the Bronx.  The scenic designs of Beowulf Boritt depict in metal skeletons the shops, apartments, and hang outs of the Bronx neighborhoods against a backdrop of sky often lit in deep reds and purples as part of Howell Binkley’s lighting schemes.

A Bronx Tale does conclude with what may be the most memorable number of the evening, “The Choices We Make,” as sung by Calogero, his father Lorenzo, and the entire cast in rich, full voice.  Their message is simple but in its own way, true and important for every young teen to hear:  “All the choices we make become part of our story; ev’ry joy and ache, they’re never truly gone.”

Rating: 3.5 E

A Bronx Tale continues through December 23, 2018 at SHN’s Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor Street, San Francisco.  Tickets are available at Tickets are available at https://www.shnsf.com.