Farren Timoteo has played a lot of roles in his life: actor, playwright, producer and artistic director with the Alberta Musical Theatre Company. But perhaps his most intriguing role is playing his own father.
It’s a role Edmonton’s Timoteo has reprised time and again in his more than 200 performances of Made in Italy — a comedic retelling of his family history. The performance, which is currently enjoying a run at the Citadel Theatre until January 28, centres on the story of Timoteo’s father and grandfather — both Italian immigrants — recalling their experiences living in 1970s Jasper.
“It’s the story of a young man learning to find himself in Canada in the ‘70s against the backdrop of Italian culture and disco music,” says Timoteo, a Top 40 Under 40 alumnus.
The solo performance is part comedy, part touching familial love-letter wherein Timoteo plays some 26 characters across the nearly two-hour run time.
“I was drawn to the idea of creating a scenario and challenging myself with rapidly playing different characters and making them fully dimensional,” Timoteo says. “I think we’re quite successful. I hear from a lot of people that forget there’s just one person up there.”
Made in Italy was borne out of Timoteo’s desire to reconnect with his family roots and was first conceived when he began relaying stories of his family antics during theatre auditions in high school.
“As a teenager, I was working with the material from the perspective of a stand-up comedian,” he says. “At that point, I knew that doing impressions of my family, or telling their stories, was funny.”
As he developed as a professional thespian, Timoteo says he wanted to explore the topic in a more fulsome format, and began collecting family stories from his father during regular meetings at The Old Spaghetti Factory on Edmonton’s 103rd Street.
“We would sit and he would tell me stories,” Timoteo says. “There was laughter, and also tears. It was a really powerful time where I learned a lot about my father.”
That powerful bonding experience has been invaluable in channeling a theatrical rendition of his father to the stage, which Timoteo says has been a positive, if not strange, experience to inhabit.
“It’s a bit surreal,” he says of playing his own dad. “It’s really quite the exercise in empathy. I’ve often joked that … if you can, write a story from your parents’ perspective. It’s an incredible way to get know [them].”
The only experience that might be stranger than playing your father, is being a father watching your son play you on the big stage. But Timoteo says his father — and his extended family — have fully embraced the performance, which has been touring across Canada (Vancouver, Hamilton, Winnipeg and Calgary, to name a few locations) since 2016.
“It’s extremely fun for us to see them get the opportunity to recognize or catch insights and characters that are genuinely specific … to our familial experiences,” he says. “My father never misses it. He travels the country to see it. Always in the front row.”
Have a laugh, and maybe reflect on your own quirky family dynamics, until January 28.
