Dallas Morning News Review of Over the River

From left to right:
Barbara Bierbrier
Ada Lynn
and Hugh Feagin in
Over the River and Through the Woods

Photo by Rose Pearson

Review:
Over the River and Through the Woods
Family current flows well
August 3, 2002
By Tom Sime
The Dallas Morning News

FORT WORTH – Among the Italian-American old folks of Over the River and Through the Woods, it's impolite to refuse seconds. So there won't be any complaining here about Joe DiPietro's comedy resurfacing at Circle Theatre on Friday night, less than a year after closing at Theatre Three in Dallas, and with three of the same actors. Apparently – to paraphrase a character – we still looked hungry.

Mr. DiPietro has a knack for comedy and longevity. Ditto for the quartet of senior citizens that makes Over the River so much fun. The main character is their grandson, Nick (Ric Leal), but they're the main attraction. The play is set in the Hoboken, N.J., home of Aida and Frank Gianelli (Ada Lynn, Richard Zavaglia). Every Sunday, they have Nick and his father's parents Emma and Nunzio Cristano (Barbara Bierbrier, Hugh Feagin) over for dinner.

The play begins on the Sunday when Nick, a marketing executive, announces he's been offered a better job in Seattle. The grandparents conspire to keep him around by fixing him up with Caitlin O'Hare (Heather Child), an Irish- American nurse who shows up at dinner one Sunday.

Nick is blindsided by the setup, and he's angry about it even as he takes a liking to Caitlin. But she's put off by his gruff attitude toward his grandparents.

Over the River doesn't take the romantic plotline to the place you'd expect. But the writing is not at all unconventional otherwise, so the disappointment feels like a reflexive concession to modern ambiguity that's more like an affectation.

The best thing about the play is the texture of aggravation it depicts so vividly: elders telling elaborate stories when they can't remember the names of anyone involved; the relentless insistence on eating; the endless, if harmless, squabbling over trifles that both older couples have been indulging in for 50 years.

As directed by René Moreno, the family fabric is as beautifully rendered as Clare Floyd DeVries' elaborate, knickknack-packed set. Though no one but Mr. Zavaglia really seems Italian, there's a realism to the banter. But the playwright insists on constantly breaking the spell with narration, which is supplied by almost every character.

And most of it is superfluous, as when the lights dim so Nick can step outside the action and tell us, "I wish I could sum up who they were and what they meant to me." One wants to say, "Shut up and show us." Not to mention, "Give us a nice long kiss and a happy ending already."

Over the River and Through the Woods,
presented by Circle Theatre,
230 W. Fourth St., Fort Worth, through Sept. 7. Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 4 and 8:30 p.m. No matinee Saturday, Aug. 3. Tickets $15 to $25. For more information, call 817-877-3040.