Bombs start dropping, people take cover, and then with the sound of the all-clear siren, the scramble is again on to score a cup of coffee from unofficial barista Amalia Jovine. With World War II tearing up Europe at full fury, the citizens of one Neapolitan neighborhood seek out one semblance of normalcy, their morning coffee, though their buzz must now be fueled through a black-market operation in Amalia's bustling, rundown apartment, designed by Erik Flatmo.
In Eduardo De Filippo's mild-mannered social comedy Napoli!, now at ACT, we see the everyday pettiness that a calamity can create. Amalia Jovine is a kind of bush-league Mother Courage, more concerned with amassing baubles than simply surviving, as the war creates victors and victims among those who are supposedly on the same side. De Filippo first staged Napoli Milionaria in Naples in 1945, after the arrival of the Allied Forces, and the playwright's wartime depiction of human frailty, rather than atrocities, might have been seen as a gentle slice-of-life rejoinder, with characters and behavior that audiences could comfortably recognize.
Linda Alper and Beatrice Basso's translation has shortened the title and added an exclamation point suggesting that Napoli! is a jauntier exercise than it is. There is an undercurrent of low-level laughter that only occasionally bursts into anything bigger. There are everyday family calamities either left unresolved or conveniently solved. There is the sad laughter of a veteran returning to a home that has moved past interest in war stories. Nor is the most potent aspect of the story played for the moralizing melodrama it could foster, but as a simple example that kindness doesn't necessarily need payback.
Director Mark Rucker's production ambles along at an agreeable tempo, with several members of the large cast rising above the crowd. Marco Barricelli cannot help but be an ample force on stage, even here as he plays the underpowered patriarch. Seana McKenna, as his wife Amalia, runs the show, as well as several underground businesses, and there is a reserved steeliness in her performance. Anthony Fusco has several touching moments as one of the victims of Amalia's usury tactics, and Gregory Wallace offers a sauntering charm as an inspector without much interest in curtailing crime.
De Filippo has a huge resume as playwright, filmmaker, and actor, and his popularity occasionally flickers on this side of the Atlantic. But ACT's production of Napoli! doesn't turn that flicker into a flame.
Napoli! will run at ACT through March 9. Tickets are $20-$120. Call 749-2228 or go to www.act-sf.org.