Malfi, Inc.

The plot of Larsen's tawdry play focuses on the Malfi Family. Elder brother Louis Malfi, a newly elected politician, keeps close tabs on his twin siblings, the beautiful Giovanna and the mysteriously ill Ferdinand. The arrival of Antonio, a handsome young veteran who may soon become the face of the company, as well as his friend Delio, brings scandal and intrigue into the house. Private dalliances take on public ramifications, and soon all is not well in the house of Malfi.

Larsen's script, however, despite its impressive attention to intricate plotting, is occasionally lacking. Her overuse of "hip" slang, especially the phrase "totes," wears quickly and feels forced. It seems as if Larsen, relying on hip trends to sell her story, has somehow decided to trust lingo rather than plot, and her occasionally rip-roaring script suffers as a result.

There are also issues of plausibility. While Giovanna's untimely pregnancy may have caused shock in an Italian court, it seems inconsequential in a time when pregnancy scandals arrive and are forgotten seemingly within a matter of days, replaced in due time by the next tabloid gossip. Similarly nonsensical is a subplot involving Ferdinand Malfi's secret illness, a rare ailment that causes him to believe he's a werewolf.

The cast assembled here is similarly touch-and-go. Anthony Gaskins is handsome and provides natural charm in the role of Antonio. Similarly, Hannah Tamminen impresses, striking the right air as Giovanna, this adaptation's Blake Lively stand-in (she's got the look down as well - the two of them look hot in the play's promotional artwork). Some of the others here, including Peter Gray as Delio and Sofia Barclay as Giovanna's "BFF" Cariola, are fine but underused, while Michael Cicetti as Ferdinand Malfi provides the evening's biggest disappointment.

Cicetti, the major villain of the piece, grates on the nerves increasingly as the evening proceeds. Impeded by Larsen's strange devices for his character, his vocal intonations are more annoying than sinister and his werewolf outbreak in the play's final half hour is embarrassingly misguided. It's rare that an actor elicits pangs of embarrassment as he arrives on-stage, but Cicetti's performance inspired such dread multiple times during the course of the play.

As the play grinds to a halt, its characters begin killing each other one by one. In a theatre so small, however, the excessive violence begins to numb rather than shock and what may be intended as realistic combat begins to lose its impact. On the night I attended, the play's final bloody moments were met with titters of laughter rather than the intended silent attention. Though Malfi, Inc. attempts to draw serious parallels between tragic drama and modern events, its execution is ultimately as tragic as its construction.

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