Two Tales of the Bronx
How does one determine the material that would be a good fit for a musical adaptation? If a range of topics, such as America’s founding fathers to re-creating animated movies to adapting comic book characters can be done - why not take a mobster flick set in the 1960s and pull that onstage with some big Broadway numbers? As it turns out, some material translates better onscreen than onstage and A Bronx Tale (1993) is an example of an excellent film that becomes confounding on the Broadway musical stage (although the story did begin as a one man play, written and performed by Chazz Palminteri in an off-Broadway theater). Despite that fact, Robert De Niro’s directorial debut stands on its own merit as a compelling portrait of a young man growing up in New York City amongst mobsters, racial tensions between neighborhoods, and bursts of reckless violence.
While sitting on the stoop of his Bronx apartment building as a nine year old, young Calogero (Francis Capra) witnesses the local mobster Sonny (Chazz Palminteri) commit murder during a street altercation in broad daylight. Having been enamored with the man’s charm and rule of the neighborhood, the young boy does not identify the man to the police. Sonny takes a liking to the kid, nicknaming him “C” and giving him small jobs to earn money, much to the chagrin of his working-class and honest-to-a-fault father (Robert Di Nero). Flashforward to C’s late teenage years (Lillo Brancato, Jr.), and he is ensconced in the fringes of Sonny’s world of the Italian New York Mafia. C meets a young Black girl named Jane (Taral Hicks) and is instantly smitten, despite the cultural and racial tensions between Italian-Americans and the Black neighborhoods. He arranges a date and borrows Sonny's fancy car to make a good impression, but their budding attraction breaks down after members of C’s gang beat up a group of Black cyclists, including Jane’s brother. After tense arguments with Jane, his father (who doesn’t approve of his dating an African-American), and with Sonny, C joins his friends who are seeking to cause more destruction in the Black neighborhood, planning on destroying Black businesses with homemade Molotov cocktails. Sonny intervenes and demands C leaves their company, effectively saving his life as the attack is turned against them and the gang is killed. C makes up with Jane and returns to the local bar to thank Sonny in person, when the relative of the man Sonny murdered many years ago returns to seek vengeance, killing the local Mafia king on his own turf. Distraught over Sonny’s death, C is shocked to find his father attending Sonny’s casket to pay his respects, and he reflects upon the lessons he learned from his two fathers.
Robert De Niro has had a towering career as an actor, solidified by a partnership with the great Martin Scorsese, one that had often tackled the topic of Mafia life. Therefore, it was no surprise that his first undertaking as a director would also examine the subject of a young man growing up on the streets of New York City amongst the influence of the mob. His directing choices are economical, forgoing flashy sequences for clarity, and giving the space to his actors to deliver upon their scenes. Doubling his duties on the shoot, De Niro also takes on the role of C’s father Lorenzo, who struggles to carve out a relationship with his son in competition with the more suave and rich figure of Sonny. De Niro’s highlight of the film is the scene where he returns the money that C has earned by doing odd jobs for Sonny, standing up to the local mob leader and attempting to draw a line for his son that he is never able to truly enforce as C grows up enamored with Sonny and mob life. De Niro is able to deliver on both the vision of the movie as the director, and infuse C’s father with faults, humanity, and the best intentions of a protective father.
The theme of masculinity is the driving force behind the film’s narrative, and the competing examples of the two figures in C’s life that attempt to guide his transition from a youth to a man. His father’s stern disavowal of the mob life, preaching to his son about the virtues of hard work, honest wages, and keeping out of trouble are the righteous path of a father, but difficult for C as a youth to understand the larger forces that his father is fighting. His stature is also diminished when he displays disapproval of his son dating a Black woman, infusing his character with faults that were prevalent at the time. Sonny, on the other hand, is a local mobster, a murderer, and would choose fear over love to keep his subordinates in line - but he also has a genuine care and love for C, supporting his desire to date Jane and telling him not to let his father, his friends, or society tell him otherwise. Sonny constantly tells the teenage C to not follow in his footsteps, adamantly conveying that his choices should not be C’s future; “Don't do what I do. This is my life. This is not for you.” He is constantly pulling him out of dangerous situations with his degenerate friends - youths that one imagines could someday be in Sonny’s employ, but with whom he doesn’t want C associating. Despite his surroundings and friend group, the actor who portrays the teenage C retains the youthful and innocent aura captured in the younger actor’s portrayal as well. The two father figures in C’s life are both flawed men, but who have the best of intentions for the young man, a realization he comes to after seeing his father pay respects to Sonny after his death.
The opening sequences of the film sets up the coming of age story of a boy surrounded by the influence of his honest father and his mobster father figure, therefore the insertion in the second half that focuses on racial relations and the inevitable tensions was quite the turn of expectations. The first scene where C and Jane meet and walk together is a delicate dance of embarrassed crush energy, tentatively trying to understand each other’s intentions, direct flirting, and making plans for spending more time together; however, once they get into Jane’s neighborhood, they suddenly realize that they can’t complete their walk together. C is chased out of the neighborhood by the stares and postering of the young Black men on the street, and direct violence happens in the Italian neighborhood when Black kids on their bicycles are attacked. The forces up against the potential couple are starkly defined, as both struggle with the disapproval of their families, friends, and the violence that has broken out within their neighborhoods. They fight against those prejudices and can’t help but be drawn to each other; one wonders how they fare after the credits roll and the tensions rage on through the 1960s.
The film opens on a night view of New York City, with a lush and tight vocal harmony crooning in the background, a slow-burning doo wop about the streets of the Bronx, which sets both the scene and context for the movie - declaring the “streets of the Bronx is where I want to be” and firmly entrenching the film with the sounds of the Black cultural music of the era. Although focusing on the growth of an Italian-American boy, there are no Godfather-esque themes gracing this soundtrack; rather, the mix of Motwon, doo wop, and Jimi Hendrix (with the occasional Dean Martin classic thrown in for good measure) paint the film’s soundscape. Perhaps it was the integral nature of the film’s music that inspired the Broadway musical, or perhaps writer Chazz Palminteri’s desire to bring his story back to the stage in a new format, but the musical opened in 2016 at the Longacre Theatre. With a book by Palminteri, co-directing credit with De Niro, and a score written by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater, the show began a national tour in 2018 and soon came to Los Angeles, where we saw it at the Pantages Theatre.
At the outset, I must crow my musical theater bonafides. I performed regularly in musicals during my youth, we have yearly subscriptions to theater and attend even more ad hoc performances, and I’m systematically working alphabetically through all musicals from A to Z. In short, I really love musicals. This musical, however, never fully mastered the tone of shifting from serious dramatic moments to belting a big Broadway tune. While the musical score attempted to pull in elements of the doo wop from the film, Menken couldn’t resist shifting to more traditional Broadway numbers and therefore lost the feeling captured in the original film. Unfortunately, the lyrics were also pretty basic at best and eye rolling at worst. For example “hey Lorenzo, we should talk / I’m his father, so take a walk.” or “She likes the pepperoni, she isn’t fit for matrimony.” There were some highlights, specifically the movement of the sets as they flowed around the stage to create compelling visual shapes. The sequence where Sonny’s crew is introduced is incredibly creative staging - each member would stand up straight, lit by a bright white light and camera clicking sound, and turn to the right with the sound repeated, all to mimic the effect of a mug shot. Additionally, the choreography and dancing were excellent (lots of cool flipping!), but none of these elements saved the musical from the disastrous tone management where a dramatic scene almost...took a break for a bright musical interlude and a less than inspiring song. Finally, the closing act took a lot of plot shortcuts and produced chaos onstage; if I hadn’t just seen the movie, I would have had an extremely difficult time following the narrative of what was going on.
Overall, Chazz Palminteri has found many formats and expressions in order to tell his semi-autobiographical tale of him growing up in the Bronx. From my viewings, the film version was the most successful of those interpretations, featuring wonderful performances by Palminteri, De Niro, and a young Francis Capra. The music element, while so successful at setting the tone of the film, was the weakest element of the stage production. The direct confrontation of racial issues in the early 1960s was a narrative surprise, but gave the story much more depth than just exploring the dueling father figures in C’s life. Ultimately, the film reminds us to take the best lessons from our parental figures and that the saddest thing in life is wasted talent.
