One star plays another in Mario. Australian actor and singer Blake Bowden, whose credits include South Pacific and Fiddler on the Roof, said he had long been fascinated by the life story of Mario Lanza.
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He and writer-performer Phil Scott, long of The Wharf Revue, have collaborated to bring to the stage the story of the American tenor who became a Hollywood star and a successful recording artist with such hits as Be My Love and Because You're Mine before his death in 1959 at the age of 38.
"Blake came to me and said he wanted to do a show about Mario," Scott said.
The two men had admired each other for a long time and first mounted the show two years ago before reviving it in 2016. Scott plays multiple roles ranging from a singing teacher to Hollywood studio boss Louis B. Mayer while Bowden, throughout, plays Mario Lanza.
"He had an incredible career," Bowden, 31, said. It spanned opera, operetta, popular song and musical theatre and Bowden will be performing numbers from all of these genres including Granada, They Didn't Believe Me and an aria from La Boheme as the show traces Lanza's rise from a gawky young man in New York with a beautiful voice to a Hollywood superstar struggling with his success.
"He lived large," Bowden said.
Lanza ended up dying, Scott said, under somewhat mysterious circumstances.
"There's a rumour," Scott said, "that the Mafia had something to do with his death."
Apparently Lanza was supposed to sing at an event in Naples in which a lot of Mafia money was invested but pulled out and was dead not long afterwards.
Not that it was the only possibility – Lanza suffered from a variety of ailments, drank a lot, and went on crash diets.
"He had a weight problem," Scott said.
"He was always putting on a lot of weight and taking it off. He sang better when fat and took it off when filming."
But whatever his problems, he was – and remains – popular, a prime example of the celebrity tenor after Enrico Caruso and, Scott said, a genuinely talented artist who inspired such latterday stars as Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo.
After this tour, both men will go on with new projects: Bowden wants to try his luck on the London stage and Scott will reunite with his fellow Wharf Revue members for a regional tour of last year's show before beginning work on this year's instalment. He said he met Foreign Minister Julie Bishop recently and told her to thank the Prime Minister for calling an early election that wouldn't clash with the new revue's season.
Mario is on The Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre from May 19 to 21 at 8pm. Bookings: canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 62752700.
