Former Rhode Island Attorney
General and talk show host Arlene Violet turns playwright
with a musical satire of the mob, The Altos
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 4, 2008
By Channing Gray
“Arlene really knows these characters,” said South County composer Enrico Garzilli, who wrote the music and lyrics for Arlene Violet’s musical The Altos. “She gave me a lot of material to work with.”
The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo
Journal Arts Writer
There’s this mafia don, see, who wants his gay opera-singing
son to take over the family business. But the kid wants no
part of that life.
Meanwhile, some of the boss’s top lieutenants have
decided to turn state’s evidence and rat him out.
Sound like an episode of The Sopranos?
Close.
We’re talking about The Altos, a new Broadway-style
musical written by former Attorney General Arlene Violet,
with music from South County composer Enrico Garzilli.
The show, which is pretty much a done deal, is headed for
workshops this summer. The hope is it will hit a local stage
this fall at a yet-to-be-determined venue.
This is not Violet’s first crack at writing. Her 200-page
autobiography Convictions came out in 1988, the year after
she left office as attorney general. But this is her first
theatrical venture. And not one she had been planning.
Violet and Garzilli got to talking last spring after the
premiere of his coming-of-age musical Michelangelo at the
Providence Performing Arts Center. Garzilli, who was trained
in Rome and taught at Providence College and URI, suggested
a future collaboration and Violet snapped at the chance.
“Let’s do it,” she said.
When it came to material, Violet turned to what she knew
best — the wise guys she’d come across during
her years as attorney general in the mid-1980s.
“We decided to stay away from the Catholic Church,” joked
Violet, an ex-nun. Garzilli is a former priest.
“I said I know how to write about the mafia because
I can hear all these guys the way they sound in my head,
their cadences and expressions. I figured it would be relatively
easy to write.”
“Arlene really knows these characters,” said
Garzilli, who wrote the show’s music and lyrics. “She
gave me a lot of material to work with.”
The Altos is Garzilli’s fifth musical, one with about
20 songs that show off his knack for spinning out a lyrical
tune.
Last year, local audiences got to hear both his Michelangelo,
which portrays the young artist and his struggle with the
reactionary Savonarola, and The Smart Set, which was produced
in Wakefield and tells of the love triangle between author
F. Scott Fitzgerald, his wife, Zelda, and a French aviator.
He is best known, though, for his Rage of the Heart, which
was produced at Veterans Memorial Auditorium about a decade
ago and depicts the passionate 12th-century romance between
scholar Peter Abelard and his student Heloise. There are
plans afoot to bring Rage to Broadway.
A concert performance of Michelango is set for later this
year in Leipzig.
Violet, who still practices some probate law and is a guest
on a couple of television news shows, met with Garzilli once
a week to flesh out an outline she had written. They started
work in July and by December the project was essentially
finished.
“It just came out,” said Violet.
Also involved in the project is New York choreographer Kim
Morgan, whom Violet befriended while the two were judging
a Miss America contest in 1999.
What makes The Altos unusual is that it’s ripped from
the headlines. Anyone who has followed accounts of the local
mafia in the press will no doubt recognize characters from
the show, beginning with ruthless Don Marco, who takes his
inspiration from mob boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca, who for
decades controlled the New England rackets.
Excerpts from the wiretap of a mafia induction ceremony
are woven into the script, and there’s a courtroom
scene based on a real case, in which an informant is gunned
down while testifying against a mafia boss. The shooter was
dying of cancer and had only months to live. In return for
a suitcase full of money for his family, he was willing to
face a murder rap.
The other unconventional touch is that the musical is told
from the perspective of the snitches, people who sang to
the cops — like altos.
The two informants in the show are Joe Barros, who is based
on government informant Joseph “The Animal” Barboza,
and Vinny the Capo, who in real life was Vincent “Fat
Vinny” Teresa, who wrote a book about his years in
the mafia.
The government’s attempt to place Vinny the Capo in
the witness protection program spawns the show’s wry
lyric “How hard can it be to hide a 350-pound canary?”
In the scene, as rotund Vinny the Capo is being flown to
a safe house, he is mistaken by a stewardess for pool shark
Minnesota Fats. She asks for his autograph, but Vinny doesn’t
know to spell Minnesota. He just scribbles “M Fats.”
Then the stewardess asks if Vinny is headed for a tournament,
and he says, “Let’s just say I’m going
to bust some balls.”
Violet said she was told the Minnesota Fats anecdote by
the late John Partington, the marshal assigned to protect
Teresa, whose last arrest was for selling stolen canaries.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” said Violet.
“People tell me how funny the show is and I say it’s
not me. I wish I were that funny.”
But there are fictional touches to be found in the show,
too.
Rather than have Don Marco’s son, Renaldo, take over
the mob as Junior Partriaca did when his father died, Garzilli
thought it would be more dramatic to have the son cast in
total contrast to his father. Renaldo, a gay opera singer,
loves his father but wants no part of his lifestyle.
Don Marco, on the other hand, is forever saying his mob
buddies are more sons to him than Renaldo. He even goes so
far as to order the killing of Renaldo’s lover with
the cold command, “Take out the trash.”
Violet and Garzilli also invented a touching scene in which
Joe Barros gives his daughter a beautiful string of pearls
to help her over the hurt of being placed in the witness
protection program, where she will have to change her name
and make new friends. The pearls, it turns out, were stolen.
In real life, said Violet, Barboza used to give his daughter
a teddy bear every time he killed someone, in part as a gift,
in part out of superstition. His daughter’s collection
numbered 23 stuffed bears.
But for the most part, this is a realistic look at organized
crime, one, said Violent, where things are not black and
white. The bad guys have some good in them, and the good
guys some bad.
In the song “A Real Saint Is What He Is,” Don
Marco gives a desperate woman money for her daughter’s
eye operation, just as Raymond Patriarca once did.
And in the opening scene, cops, politicians and priests
line up in Don Marco’s office on Federal Hill looking
for favors and handouts, as the don sings the catchy song “Responsibilities.”
“To be a leader in the mob,” said Violet, “you
have to have leadership skills. These people are ruthless
but charming. Somebody might leave the show and say, ‘That’s
what it takes to get elected to office.’ ”
Another unusual aspect of the show is that in the end the
wise guys prevail, as they sing “You’ll Never
Catch Us.” Although there also is a finale titled “We
Can Move Mountains,” in which the good guys in the
show hold out hope that the gangsters will someday be brought
to justice.
Garzilli would like to see a series of readings and workshops
take place over the summer in preparation for a fall production.
He said the show is still a “work in progress,” and
getting audience feedback could lead to improvements.
For one thing, The Altos has, at this point, no love interest.
It is mostly about the relationship between Don Marco and
his mob associates.
It has been suggested that a romance blossom between Partington,
the marshal, and Emily, the daughter of the snitch Joe Barros.
But Violet is against the idea. Having a cop become involved
with someone he’s protecting would be an “insult” to
law enforcement, she said.
She has written a couple of alternate scenes. In one, a
young prosecutor from the trial of Emily’s father falls
for her. In another, Emily just has a boyfriend. Violet said
she will try these versions out during workshops and see
how they “play in Peoria.”
Highlights of The Altos are being performed for front-end
investors May 28. The event takes place at the Farbre Line
Club on the fourth floor of 200 Allens Ave. in Providence.
Violet said she hopes to raise $100,000, which should be
enough to get the show on a local stage.
She is also hoping to hold a “near-production” this
summer for big-money investors from New York. It would take
millions to take the show to New York, she said.
Anyone is welcom to come to the investors’ showcase
on the 28th. The event takes place at 7 p.m. and is free.
But Violet warned that those who don’t write checks
might have to worry about their kneecaps.
cgray@projo.com |
