THE STORY:In a ladies’ powder room, three members of an Italian-American family — a grandmother, her daughter, and her granddaughter — retreat to discuss family business away from the distractions of a noisy wedding reception. The granddaughter needs the money her grandmother has set aside for her as a dowry. The generations clash uproariously and with much Italian “brio” as the flinty grandmother refuses to budge an inch on money until her granddaughter agrees to find herself a husband; the granddaughter makes it very clear that marriage is the farthest thing from her mind; and the mother, caught in the middle, tries to calm things by plying the others with staggering amounts of food and drink carted in from the groaning buffet. She even arranges a visit by the glib, unctuous MC ("he’s cute, he’s single, he’s Italian"), but the granddaughter remains unmoved and the old lady retreats into a stern-faced, stony silence. But, happily, the emotions stirred up by their dispute are counterbalanced by the strong family ties that bind them together and that, in the end, give them the means to deal with the differences that have sprung up between them. (1 man, 3 women.)
A lively, warmly humorous, yet very revealing study of the relationship between three generations—grandmother, daughter and granddaughter—which reaches an hilarious crisis point amid the lively hubbub of an Italian wedding.
