Theatre in Review: 13 Things About Ed Carpolotti (59E59)

	Photo by: Carol Rosegg

Penny Fuller is having a few people over for the holidays; I'd drop in if I were you. Actually, the soiree in question is being hosted by Virginia Carpolotti, the put-upon Pennsylvania housewife who is the center of 13 Things About Ed Carpolotti. Then again, it's easy to mix up the actress with the role; for one thing, Fuller has played Virginia before, in Jeffrey Hatcher's Three Viewings, which had a brief run at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1995. (Three Viewings consisted of a trio of monologues offered by the customers of a funeral home; this mini-musical -- book, music, and lyrics by Barry Kleinbort, who also directed -- draws only on the play's final scene, which features Virginia.) Possibly because she has had 17 years to think about Virginia -- or maybe just because she's a masterful performer -- Fuller so completely embodies the character that watching this brief musical becomes like an intimate conversation with an old friend.

The newly widowed Virginia is beginning to take stock of her life -- and she's about to get the shock of her life. Having inherited the presidency of her husband's trucking firm, she is stunned to discover that he was deeply in debt -- to the bank, to his brother, and to the local mobster, the notorious Dino DiSperbio. ("Dino is the owner of Smith Trucking. They own no trucks and there has never been a Mr. Smith.") As the phone messages pile up -- from her lawyer, the bank, Dino, and her brother-in-law, who has designs on her beloved home, Virginia evades them all, frantically seeking a solution while considering the possibility that she never really knew the man she loved. It isn't until a malicious, unsigned letter arrives, demanding a million dollars in hush money, that things suddenly start to improve, for reasons that are not revealed until the finale.

A charming, funny slice of "light" black comedy, the Virginia Carpolotti sequence of Three Viewings wasn't really ripe for musicalization. Its humor depends entirely on a mounting sense of peril and the musical numbers, which are little more than mildly pleasant interruptions, serve to undermine the story's momentum, deflating the comedy a bit, and forcing Fuller to inject the proceedings with a fresh jolt of energy every few minutes. There are one or two exceptions where music and lyrics help to deepen the story: Fuller has a field day with a memory of a youthful escapade in which, ostensibly attending the movies with a female friend, Virginia slipped away for a romantic encounter; now, facing her outraged father, she is made to recount the plot of a film she hasn't seen -- the Martin and Lewis comedy My Friend Irma Goes West -- distilling the signature styles of Martin, Lewis, and such deathless names as Corinne Calvet and John Lund. And there's an attractively melancholy tune in which Virginia contemplates the many flaws of the house she loves so well. But this is a case where the score and script are often at odds.

But if the material is of varying quality, it's worth it to spend an hour in the company of this spellbinder, who, employing an almost invisible technique, grounds this lightheaded material in solid reality. Whether occupying a chair in sad contemplation of her husband's possible misdeeds, casting a gimlet eye on her daughter's devotion to the writings of Sylvia Plath, or humming wildly to keep her fraying nerves under control as various men press her for money, she is a complete delight. Given a fresh observation -- "[Her daughter] says her Mazda was in an accident, but the way she phrases it, it sounds like the Mazda had a night off and got into trouble" -- she easily lands a solid, satisfying laugh. And her singing is a wonder, marked by meticulous phrasing, exemplary diction, and a remarkable skill at spinning out a melodic line for all it is worth.

Fuller is joined by Paul Greenwood, who accompanies her on the piano and also joins in on a couple of numbers, but really she is the whole show here. And why not? She has been delighting audiences for decades. Show fans fondly recall her treacherous Eve Harrington in Applause (1970). I first saw her in Rex, a deeply confused Richard Rodgers musical about Henry VIII; cast as both Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth Tudor, she stuffed the entire show in her sleeve and walked away from it. Since then, she's been never less than beguiling in works by names as varied as Neil Simon, William Finn, and Tennessee Williams. 13 Things About Ed Carpolotti may not be a show for the ages, but Penny Fuller only gets better with age.--David Barbour