theater

Drama Wit' Some Make Believe

We see a new play sorta, kinda about the late Joey Vento with his son Geno, Geno's Steaks owner and namesake.

Geno Vento with the "Down Past Passyunk" sign.
Carolyn Wyman

Geno's Steaks owner and namesake Geno Vento saw his life flash before his eyes Friday night at the Adrienne Theater.

It happened while he was watching InterAct Theatre Company's first preview of Down Past Passyunk, a new play inspired by his late father Joey's struggle with the population changes in his cheesesteak stand's South Philly neighborhood. And for the most part, Vento liked what he saw.

"It's well-done and funny if not terribly factual," said Vento.

The play is, in fact, a fictionalized account of the Geno's Steaks "Speak English" controversy, with a Mexican-owned "Pat's" and rivalries that turn violent.

Vento, 42, seemed to be able to relate best to the media frenzy that erupts in the play when the Joey Vento character, named Nicky Grillo, begins publically talking about "taking back" the neighborhood and country, and to the scenes of conflict between Nicky and the Geno Vento character­ -- Nicky's daughter, Sophia.

"I definitely wasn't as aggressive or boisterous as she was, but I did tell my dad my opinion, which he sometimes did and sometimes did not agree with," Vento mused during intermission.

As a theatrical producer (of the Calamari Sisters shows at the Penn's Landing Playhouse) and fan (he's seen Rent 100 times), Vento understands that Down Past Passyunk "is a show and the playwright has added different things to the story." But he worried aloud that some audience members might think his father was as belligerent and unfriendly as Grillo. "My dad never turned people away, never forced his opinions on anyone" and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars away to charity.

"I wasn't trying to tell the Joey Vento story," acknowledged playwright A. Zell Williams, 30, in an earlier phone interview from his home in New York City. Instead, what interested Williams about Joey was how his reaction to the new waves of immigration in South Philadelphia mirrored "the conservative dialogue that's been happening around immigration and what it means to be an American and the changing demographics of this country and how there's been a bit of bristling against that change."

Down Past Passyunk is actually the second of two local racial controversies Williams has turned into plays. Williams' In a Daughter's Eyes was loosely based on the "Free Mumia" movement following the killing of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner and was also staged by InterAct at the Adrienne in 2011, which was when Williams says he first heard about Geno's "Speak English" sign. He began writing Passyunk after becoming InterAct's 2012-13 season artist-in-residence.

"I was living in South Philly right off of 10th and Morris so I would hear people right outside of Varallo's [bakery, mentioned in the play] on a nice day or hang out on their stoops and I'd listen to the way they talked. Writing the speech pattern was the biggest challenge," says Williams and it's one Vento said he nailed.

"Listening to the characters talk I felt like I was in my steak house," he said.

Still, when it comes to theater, Vento says he prefers musicals and comedies.

And when it comes to cheesesteaks, Williams says he prefers Jim's.