Mario

Beautiful songs from a legendary tenor

This is an amazing show from a truly talented team. Blake Bowden (South Pacific) plays Mario Lanza through a couple of decades of his roller coaster career, delivering some of this legendary tenor’s best songs from the fifties. Phil Scott (The Wharf Review) accompanies Bowden on piano and plays a clutch of other characters – from Louis B Mayer to an Italian Mafia Don. The show runs like clockwork for just over an hour, with rapid costume and lighting changes, expertly directed by Chris Parker and executed by Bowden and Scott (who dons many wigs to clearly define his many characters), plus a very capable tech operator. The energy of this show is powerful and unrelenting. For instance, when Mario is drafted into the army, Bowden does push-ups and runs rings around the piano, whilst singing up a storm! WOW!

Incorporating a fast track narrative about Mario’s relatively brief sun-burst of stardom on stage, radio and film and punctuating this with some of his best known and beloved songs is a very clever way to keep an audience entertained on several levels simultaneously. We can feel for Mario’s constant struggle with his career, his managers, his studio, his weight, his marriage, his children, his mistresses and booze. And we can appreciate the abundant talent within this troubled man when he expresses himself through song. Bowden and Scott deliver the music so well. Combined with tight direction, excellent lighting, simple yet entirely appropriate costuming and very talented artists, the songs bring to life the soul, the grief and the talent of a man conflicted in his actions as his runaway career accelerates, then quickly terminates. So sad.

The Hayes Theatre has produced a plethora of wonderful musicals since they opened earlier this year and Mario fits beautifully into this pantheon of high quality shows. Well done Neil and company. Don’t miss Mario!

Stephen Carnell