Review by Michelle Fisher
Emerging from backstage in a fiery red, beautiful gown with an impressive train, a tiara styled headband and belting a great big ‘BE ITALIAN…’ Carla Anita Mattiazzo’s newest cabaret That’s Not Amore kicks off with great gusto. Complete with a three piece band of ‘Sexy Salamis,’ this seasoned cabaret performer showed us all exactly what cabaret at the Adelaide Fringe should be…powerful, thoughtful, entertaining and, at least in this instance, Italian!
A cabaret that is both funny and poignant, with a performer who holds the audience with her fabulous stage presence and vocals, and a dynamic band that wraps it up into a wonderful hour of entertainment, is unfortunately rare. So many great singers at this fringe have lovely shows but few have the confident ability to work with the audience, and capture the audience, in the way that Mattiazzo does in this hour of power.
As a performer, she is everything she professes to be - loud, proud, Italian, a feminist and a survivor with a message she wants to put out there. She reminds us all that no matter what your background and what your family and friends’ expectations are - your personal worth is more important. When this is in question…no grazie - no thank you, no mi piace - I don’t like, that’s not Amore.
Carla manages to infuse her cultural background and the stereotypical Italian norms into her own story about her immigrant grandparents, the judgements from her nonna and mother, the expectations of her as an Italian woman and the fallout from that, with both pathos and wit. She is a master of both and has an easy and comfortable rapport with the audience.
If I had to critique something, it would be that the narrative is a bit all over the place and would benefit probably from both time with a dramaturg and also from a longer set time. The first half is well established and the storytelling is strong but as we delve into the deeper, harder-to-discuss topics, we are also running out of time in the tight 60 required for a fringe show. Carla has the stamina and the story for a 75-90 minute version of this show and I think that giving the rest of the story the same space for development as the stories of her grandparents at the beginning, would help this show flourish.
Even as is, it is easy to forgive the rushed storytelling at the end as Carla weaves descriptions of her family, her dating life and growing up as an Italian in Australia, with history and cultural facts about the 80s. Her stories leave you laughing and feeling sad at the same time. Her voice, whilst excellent in the alto registry, struggled a little more with the higher/head voice notes but combined with her band of ‘salamis’ it didn’t distract from the overall feeling.
I believe that Carla Anita Mattiazzo is one to watch and hope that she looks to tour this show on the back of its Adelaide Fringe success. I would definitely see it again and encourage friends to attend too! I think this show would also work really well at the Edinburgh Fringe and hope that some savvy producers take a look at it to give her that opportunity (or go for it yourself if you can Carla, the show is great!).
This is definitely worth seeing and a great addition to the Adelaide Fringe line up.
With one more weekend to go, I’d urge you to get a ticket to this before it sells out!
And so, Carla, Grazie and Mi Piace!! For this show, there is lots of Amore!
