Johnny Mangano and His Astonishing Girlies
We've just finished 3 weeknds of performances at the Orpheus Cafe. We play there on Friday and Saturday night at 8pm. This weekend (end of May 2008) will be our last performance of this play.The play we're doing is actually two separate plays by Canadian playwright Michel Tremblay, written in the mid-70s.
The first one is Berthe. This is a piece about a woman running the ticket booth for the last twelve years, beautifully played by Donna Prima. She could've been a famous actress - it's true! But life got away from her and she now lives out her life reading supermarket checkout magazines and being bored.
There's no intermission. We go straight into the second play, Johnny Managano and His Astonishing Dogs. I play Johnny, and Charlotte, my wife of twelve years and girlie on stage, is played by Amanda Parke.
We love working together. We've been acting together for years, and we've reached a good comfort level on stage. So playing husband and wife is an easy role for us to get into, having done it so often on stage in various forms. Someone filmed us on the second night, and I've got it on my computer. Watching our performance I'm once again really pleased to see what a good performance Amanda always gives. When she gets into a part it's hard to see anything but her character. She's good, but then I'm a big fan of hers - she makes me look good.
This Saturday, May 31st, is our last night. We always have fun the last show. Everyone who's smart will be there. After the play Ayib Deng will perform. Bring your best bottles of wine! It's gonna be a fun night!
Mark List
