Review: "Only Mozart is Missing" Scores a Family's History
Only Mozart is Missing (Manca solo Mozart)
Written and directed by Antonio Grosso
Performed by Marco Simeoli
Presented by Altra Scena and Viola Produzioni
May 2, 2023 at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU, 24 W 12 St., Manhattan, NYC
May 3, 2023 at the Center for Italian Modern Art, 421 Broome St., Manhattan, NYC
May 6, 2023 at Marygrove Conservancy, 8425 W McNichols Rd, Detroit, MI
Marco Simeoli. Photo by Francesco Nannarelli. |
For Salvatore Simeoli, grandfather of writer, director, and actor Marco Simeoli, music is life, and life is music. Salvatore, we learn very early in Marco's humorous, big-hearted solo show Only Mozart is Missing (Manca solo Mozart), always loved music and credits music with his success in life, which is tied to the music shop which he opens in Naples. The show, written by Antonio Grosso, who also directs, is based on Simeoli family lore, particularly on stories from Salvatore, whose personal experiences compose a melody that weaves through several decades of often discordant twentieth-century Italian history. Only Mozart is Missing, performed in Italian with English supertitles, is presented this month as part of the 2023 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival, taking place throughout NYC's five boroughs from May 1st through 16th.
Amidst a profusion of sheet music artwork hung on the wall and littering the floor of the stage, Simeoli, as his grandfather, recounts the founding of the shop, its growing success, and his growing family of children with "original" names. The first time that the coming world war enters the picture is through a joke, but, of course, the effects on the family business–and the nation–prove to be more somber, and one anecdote in particular is characterized by patently tragic irony. In contrast, a segment in which Durante, one of Salvadore's sons, is selling apples because music isn't selling anymore is very funny even as the circumstances are very much not. The shop however, endures, into the 1960s and Italy's economic recovery, into the 1970s and the rise of organized crime, and we hope that it does not spoil anything to say that, should you happen to find yourself in Naples, you can still visit the shop, Musica Simeoli, and join the ranks of its many famous visitors over the years. A fun and unexpected musical number near the end in fact brings us into the present day, both musically and generationally.
Amidst a profusion of sheet music artwork hung on the wall and littering the floor of the stage, Simeoli, as his grandfather, recounts the founding of the shop, its growing success, and his growing family of children with "original" names. The first time that the coming world war enters the picture is through a joke, but, of course, the effects on the family business–and the nation–prove to be more somber, and one anecdote in particular is characterized by patently tragic irony. In contrast, a segment in which Durante, one of Salvadore's sons, is selling apples because music isn't selling anymore is very funny even as the circumstances are very much not. The shop however, endures, into the 1960s and Italy's economic recovery, into the 1970s and the rise of organized crime, and we hope that it does not spoil anything to say that, should you happen to find yourself in Naples, you can still visit the shop, Musica Simeoli, and join the ranks of its many famous visitors over the years. A fun and unexpected musical number near the end in fact brings us into the present day, both musically and generationally.
Marco Simeoli. Photo by Francesco Nannarelli. |
-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards
More from our 2023 In Scena! coverage:
Review: "The Gummy Bears' Great War" Merits Your Unconditional Surrender
Review: "I Am So Much Better Live" Invites You to Take It at Its Word
Review: Fascism is No Fairy Tale in "WE, PUPPETS Story of a Life Shattered by Racism"
News: In Scena! Italian Theater Festival Announces Collaboration with the Hystrio Award-Scritture di Scena
News: The 2023 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival Begins on May 1st
Review: "I Am So Much Better Live" Invites You to Take It at Its Word
Review: Fascism is No Fairy Tale in "WE, PUPPETS Story of a Life Shattered by Racism"
News: In Scena! Italian Theater Festival Announces Collaboration with the Hystrio Award-Scritture di Scena
News: The 2023 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival Begins on May 1st
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