Meet Me In The Monologue, Episode 120, Guest: Frank Ingrasciotta

Welcome to this episode of Meet Me in the Monologue, a podcast series exploring the intersection of writers and actors, process and performance, insight and inspiration, hosted by writer Dennis Bush, with co-host Meggy Lykins.

Our guests for this episode are writer-performer Frank Ingrasciotta, and a monologue/section of Frank's play Blood Type: RAGU.

We encourage you to support the work of our guests. 

https://www.frankactordirector.com/actor/

Meet Me in the Monologue is edited and mixed by Martin W. Scott, who also serves as our announcer. 

*This episode contains mature language.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Meet Me in the Monologue, a podcast series that explores the intersection of writers and actors, process and performance, inspiration and insight. Hosted by writer Dennis Bush with Kelsey Pietra Paulo and Meggie Likens.

SPEAKER_04 0:25

Welcome to this episode of Meet Me in the Monologue. Joining me and my co-host, Meggie Likens, is writer-performer Frank Ingraciata. Welcome.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Hello, hello, Meggie. Hello, Dennis. Thank you so much for inviting me.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Welcome.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

Normally we would say give us a little background to set up the monologue, but you're doing a portion of your many, many character one-man show. So if you could set up the portion that you're going to do with what we need to know.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Okay. Well, first let me say the monologue is from my off-broy solo show Blood Type Ragu. It's a funny and heartfelt coming-of-age story about my experiences growing up as a first-generation child of immigrants. And it's about me searching for my identity as a man, trying to understand the culture, and ultimately finding forgiveness. So in this monologue, you're about to hear, I portray myself at the age of 18. Also my father, gospel, my mother Maria, and my father's girlfriend Nancy, as my mother affectionately called her the Bhutan of the Whore. You'll also hear some Italian phrases such as uh prendala alla casa della Madonna. So I want to translate that, which means go get it at the House of the Virgin Mary. Because that was my father's response when I asked him for something and he didn't want to provide it. He would say, Go get it at the house of the Virgin Mary. So my parents, it's also my parents had their own pet names uh from my name, Frank. My father called me Frangi, and my mother called me Frangenet. So uh when you hear those things, uh just want to give a little you know foreground here. All right. After losing my virginity at the chicken ranch in Las Vegas, I knew I had to find my own life. So I moved out. Without me for a buffer, my father sold a house and separated from my mother after forty years of marriage. Gospere, maybe we try one more time? Go try in the crazy house, Maria. That's where you belong. Then you give me money to live. I give you what's yours, and the rest waits for you. You know where? A la Casa de la Madonna. Ah the Madonna? Well the Madonna will be my judge. When I take you to court and bleed your veins dry. So my father asked me to rent him a U-Haul truck to help him move. So I'm driving this kahuna truck on a nine lane boulevard, struggling to look out the rearview mirror through sixty-two years of this man's life. Cabbies are honking at me. Hey, Mr. Uhaul, let me ask you a question. Fuck you. I turn to react as I catch my father holding himself in pain. Dad, Dad, are you all right? I sweat for that house and this family. Never, never in my life I believe it in this way. I was a good father, wasn't I? My foot slams on the brake. Now, now in the middle of cursing cabbies and traffic jams, I finally get a voice? A good father. A father who pummels his son over spilt milk. A father who's absent from graduations. A father who never showed his son how to be a real man. Finally, it's my turn to say. You did the best you could, Dad. Oh, Dad. Dad. It's okay. It's okay. I rest my arm over his shoulder to comfort him. There was guttural sobs. Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around? Six months ago I meet a woman at a senior citizen center. I know look for it, it just happened. She asked me to live with her, so I say yes. You think I do something bad? Do something bad. Like all the times you shame mom in front of me? Like making her walk after her operation because you were too cheap to pay for a cab. Like breaking her fingers for spending too much money on a couple for herself. You son of a As long as you're happy, Dad. The next week I help my mother move. My childhood flashes before me while we're pulling away from my family home. My mother sits quietly in the car. Her eyes suddenly widen. Your father, he has a butana. I feel it in my heart. That face of a cow turd is a with someone. No, Ma, no, he's not. No, no, no, no, Frankina. No lie to me. You know, ever since you go to that Las Vegas, I don't know what that is. Something's so different about you. Okay, Ma, okay. You wanna know? He's with someone. I am woman to no one. I cook for him, take care of him. And now Bhutana gets him in the end. But my heart is pure. So how's her ragu, huh? Is it as good as mine? Ma, I don't know. What do I know? Dad invited us for dinner tomorrow night to meet her. Oh really? Well give her a message from me. Pitcher! I wear black tomorrow and cryou for dead if you eat that putanas ragu. My mother didn't need nails. One look, and I was hung to the cross. With room to now socialize, my father invited me and my siblings to share in his new life. I ring the doorbell. Welcome to my home, I'm see. A woman with the body of a warhead dressed in a bright flowered moo moo answers the door. Her clown lipstick is bleeding between the cracks of her lips. My father's shacking up a fucking Ronald McDonald. Well, these are Casper's children. Sit, sit. Oh, he's so looking forward to this dinner. Can I offer you some malone or proschute? Casper's such a puppy. He helped me to wrap each one individually. Casper helps me cook clean. He even irons my clothes. When Casper doesn't cook, he takes me out to the best restaurants. Who is Casper? Your father, silly. Don't you know your father? Apparently not. Too bad it didn't work out with your mama. I feel terrible here. Casper, get me Lamanagotti out of the oven, would you, darling bear? Ma shoe, Nancy. During dinner he waited on her like a lovesick schoolboy. Can I offer you more Sorel, Frank? What is Sorel? You speak Italian and you don't know? More Sorel. Do you mean mozzarella? That's what I said. More Sorel. Casper teaches me Italian on the bus to Atlantic City. And then then we whoopee all night, right, Casper? As we're leaving, my father turns for our approval of her. I wanted to vomit my monogat and more sorrel all over this palliacci clown in a bozo wig. Are we my dear Chi? I hope you find a second home here. The next day I asked my father to lunch. Dad, you know, I I tried. I really did. I I tried to respect your girlfriend, but she's nothing to me. I'm not stepping foot into your apartment anymore. Everybody introduced her to hates her. Dad, really. Really, tell me the truth. Are you happy? Yesterday I I bite a plane ticket to go to Sicilia. I know take Nancy. She'd think I go for three weeks to see family, but if I like, I know come back. You think I should leave everything and go? Well, you have another brother and sister you haven't seen and spoken to in 23 years. You should go. But small towns like to talk, and your mother's family is there. Would they respect me? Dad, Dad, go. Go. Even if you don't stay, it'll give you time to think. Go.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

I go. I leave next week. Before I go, I want you to have this. Dad, there must be more than $30,000 in cash in this bag. It's my life savings. I'm afraid. I'm afraid you mother sue me, and I don't want Nancy to know my worth. You take, huh? You don't want my money. Dad, I don't want to feel responsible for put it back in the bank. That's where it belongs. Manage America! I only have pain in this America. I am independent and alone. When I die, maybe I see your mother again. In a world outside of this one. We danced an awkward goodbye as he clung to me. He no longer felt like Cole Marble, but like a clump of wet mashed potatoes. Dad. Um I l I l You have yourself a good joy. Okay? That evening Nancy calls, telling me my father was suffering a massive attack of the heart. I raced over as the paramedics were arriving. But there was nothing they could do. Thrown over half-packed suitcases and gifts for relatives. With the intravenous tubes that couldn't revive a hidden heart.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Yeah, exactly. I feel like we've been on an adventure. We know your family. I feel like I should go to the family reunion.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

Like I'm invited to you.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

You're invited. So not just how you were inspired to write this or what the inspiration was, but at what point in your life did this inspiration kick in and say, now's the time to write this?

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Oh, yeah. Well, as an adult, I went back to school just to finish my bachelor's degree. You know, I got it in educational theater. And then what happened is I took a playwriting course. So one of the assignments was, you know, write a story about your life. And I always had these stories, you know, that I would tell to my family, but mostly they were from the humor side. There's a lot of that. But I really started to tell the real story, you know, that wasn't messed with humor. And as a in the assignment, a professor said to me, you know, you should do something with this. And so did my friends. So that that was the impetus for me to start to write. And I started to. Eventually, I had the outline for um a solo show. I knew that every time I sat down and wrote about it, my nervous system was going in all directions because I realized that wherever I shut off the story in my life is what was waking up, you know, and coming to life again. So I had would have to get up and walk around and then come back. But I was also in a solo performance class with other peers that were also writing solo shows, and I was just encouraged, just trust the story, just stick with the story and get it through. Because the deeper the risk, the more people, not even people will resonate, but the more you'll be feeling like you have something to offer, you know. So I I finished it and then I started trying it out in front of an audience. So the inspiration really for me was to I didn't want it to be a story about you know, working out my stuff. I had worked that out. It was really about wanting to tell a story that was beyond the stereotypes of what Italians have going on a lot in the world of film, which is you know, the mafia thing, the gangster thing. It was more about what's the real story of growing up as a first-generation child of immigrant parents and who are struggling in a new world and also struggling amongst themselves. And I thought, what does that child go through? You know, having to negotiate that and be one person in the house and then put on another person and trying to become a man coming into his own in the midst of a mother that was overbearing because her father, the father couldn't provide the needs for the mom, you know, so she turned to her son to be the prince. Prince is great. I you know, I love being the prince, but then I realized, oh, there's a high price to pay for being the prince because there's something very emasculating about that.

SPEAKER_04 13:57

So yeah, I mean, I think not just your own character having a voice, but I feel like you give such a delicious, rich voice to the family members, um, and a chance for their thoughts and their lives to to reach an audience that they wouldn't otherwise. What a lovely gift it is for them.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Thank you. I was very afraid to put it out, and I'm sure people who write solo shows about their lives feel that, but I just had to trust the story and trust the work, you know. And then when I started to get the feedback from audiences, I worked with the wonderful director by the name of Ted Sott. He sat me down with the story because at first the story was two hours long, the script was two hours long, and then I was told that if you really want to get this produced, you got to bring it down to traditional 80 to 90 minutes, no intermission. Because I was performing at two acts. So he sat me down and he said, Okay, you know, um, let's make it the holy trinity, let's make it the father, the mother, and the son. And then all the other characters are extraneous because I had stories, you know, as a writer, you go, like, oh, but I love that story, you know, I don't want to give it up. And and he kept saying, for the next show, for the next show, you know, so um uh so all that stuff went to the wayside, and the meat was the that, you know, and then when I started to perform it, the scariest part was to tell the story to an audience, but when my brother and my sister came, you know, that kind of thing. But it was so interesting because I learned that as three children of a family, everybody's got their own version of the story. You know, I caught my parents, I was the youngest, I caught my parents at the tail end, uh, where their marriage was really crumbling. They saw happier times, you know. So great, my brother wanted to get up and do it with me. My sister felt a little uncomfortable, you know, and then she but she came around. But what really happened is a whole external family came back into my life because cousins started reading the New York Times Review, and so I started getting people coming and they because I realized, oh my god, my grandfather's dead grandfather. My you know, my yeah, so because what had happened as a result of my family having this breakdown out of shame, they didn't divorce because you didn't divorce in a Catholic Italian family, they chose to live separate quarters of the house I grew up in, so they never had to really deal with each other. So I'm living there in the middle of that in my refuge lot in the basement, and then people would call us, you know, family would call us, the doorbell would ring, and they wouldn't answer. You know, they just pulled away from everyone. So everyone wondered what the hell happened to this family, you know. So what happened is that um I marry never in my life did I think I was gonna marry back into the culture. I I meet a Sicilian uh woman. Um God God will God will give you the lesson. And um uh she was my heart, she was wonderful, and when I started telling her my stories, she went, I get it. I grew up with the same story, you know, only different names. So she knew my I say in the play, she knew my story and loved me anyway. So her parents lived six months out of the year in in Sicily and six months here, they had already retired, so I had like a little retirement home because that's what they came from. You know, families came from like four hours away, sit towns four hours away. So on my honeymoon, there was family that they had a reception here, and then they had a reception in Sicily for her family. So my my wife kept saying to me, because when I was I was there at seven years old, my mother had taken me just me and her, because my mother went for some rest and relaxation because she was having a hard time adjusting. So she kept saying to me, Do you want to see this family that you saw when you were seven? By that time I was in, you know, my early 30s, and I was like, I don't know who they are, you know. And she said, But you're here, you should ring the doorbell to see. And I remember them. Wait, wait, wait, ring the doorbell, not like call ahead, send an email. Because in Italy, there were at that time it was just when cell phones were coming into play and emails, you know, and they were older people, it's not like they have computers and things like that. So we drive through the town, and so funny, I I don't know if you believe in the synchronicities of life, but I was trying to find the address because I did know their address, and I was able to get that from my mother, and and she my mother said to me, you know, don't stay in anyone's home because after three days the fish smells. She's like and don't hug them because you're gonna get don't hug them because you're gonna get their old age. So I turned to my mother and I said, I should never hug you. So my hand was shaking when I rang the doorbell. I was able to get their number. They were listed in the phone books. I did call, and um, and at first she didn't know who I was, and then she figured it out. So when I arrived, you know, she looked at me here at adult mail and she said to me, Oh my god, you know, you're the fruit peel of your father, she said in Italian, you know, meaning that I had the same skin. So anyway, we had coffee and the stories came out, and they were just so grateful. I I was carrying the shame of the story, but they were wonderful. And my uncle then presented me, who was blind at that time, presented me with a picture of my father when he was four years old, and he started talking to me about him as a child, and it was tremendous healing because what happened is I understood when my father was the way he was by walking the streets he walked, right? And understood him further when I started living in his body, playing him, you know. So it's it had a full circle moment. So anyway, that's a long-winded answer. No, I love her. I love that.

SPEAKER_04 20:14

Wow. So you've done more than 1200 performances. Yeah, how does it land with different audiences? I mean, the Sicilian and and Italian folks, they get it on the one level, and I'm sure the humor lands with everybody. You know, come for the laughs and stay for the thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Right, exactly. Because what happens is uh I didn't you learn a lot as a writer, as a performer, uh, you know, what what the rhythm is, what the it's like a mu I always think of it as a musical, you know, and then what things kind of work, what things don't, and I knew I had to stick to the family story, not make it so inside, you know. So there's always um resonance of family because people would say, Oh, my father had another woman, you know, or or you know, or I had an aunt like that, or an uncle like that. And once I played for an all-African American audience to raise money for uh a teen to help him pay for his books for college. We did a little, got together did a little fundraiser for him. But uh, what I started to realize is oh, okay, um, I guess this this is like something that people, you know, you may not get the all the Italian moments, but you get the family part. As if you're watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:32

And as an actor, how do you make the shifts from character to character and narrator so that the audience is along for the ride? Is it all vocal? Do you have props?

SPEAKER_02 21:44

That's a great question. No, the show moves so quickly that there's no time for many props. I'll bring out maybe a scarf and do things with it and or um uh but there's no prop. It's I had to figure out what is the essence, the voice. of the character and the body. So every time I do my mother, she has a perfect uh a a stance in her hand goes through her chest. When I do my father, the body becomes, you know, like a strong I think of it as almost like um a gorilla. I got it I get an image in my head to carry me through the character. Like when I pa play my grandmother. So it's it's a transition of uh movement and voice to go from character to character.

SPEAKER_04 22:28

And how have those transitions and those physicalities changed as you've lived with those characters for 1200 performances. I mean I know that's a hell of a run.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

They deepen they deepen and they I two things happen. Every time I do it I'm a different person than I was the last time I did it. You know so I find more in in the text. Uh the other part of it is I just find more nuances and even even though I wrote it it's just always more realizations of of little moments and things I could do that deepen the character you know and it's been a gift because it's been like I've done 50 shows in one show.

SPEAKER_04 23:11

I love that idea. So before we forget let's make sure we can tell our listeners how to get Blood type record.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Yes. Well um I'm not performing it right now because right now I'm adapting it to a screenplay um so I'm I'm spending time to write that. Yay so because I think if I've been around this long um it's visual you know a lot of people have told me you know this could go the ne the next to another medium to bring it to a large audience. However this last year and and you don't know this Dennis uh it was uh published by Next Stage Press and uh so now it's uh it's been uh published and it's streaming the actual off Broadway show is streaming on Broadway on demand so if people go on Broadway on demand and type in blood type ragu you can watch the whole 90 minute show as it was off Broadway.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

Fabulous and I did know it was published by Next Age we share we shared that that publisher so um I was telling Maggie before we started today's episode that when I saw it on the Next Age website just the title I had such a flash of opening a cabinet in my childhood kitchen and the ragoo sauce was and I could smell it was like this incredible sense memory. I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania so there were lots of Italian and Sicilian folks lots of Polish immigrants a real melting pot of ethnicity and my father always said we were not any of those people which led me to believe we didn't have any of the good food. Nothing that we ate had seasoned you know salt and pepper of course but that was pretty sparingly yeah that exactly that was pretty much it. So yeah just the title alone had resonance and I would guess that for a lot of people seeking it out seeing that title brings back a childhood of spaghetti sauce and all of that.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

My rago though is not that not the job my mother would like fling it out the window if she saw it but but it was it was uh I thought of it ragu is a meat sauce so it was kind of like a a Sunday sauce that we had but I came up with that title because it was more like a culture that coursed through my veins you know more that and also of course you're always surrounded by good food.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

A quick question that's not really related to the journey but what is a kahuna truck?

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Oh just a large large large weighty truck that's what I mean by kahuna I saw the I think it's a Hawaiian yeah like big kahuna yeah oh yeah it's like where's the Italian I've never heard that right right right I have a question that was from a American perspective.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yeah we go there we go well first of all I just think it's so cool to watch you to actually get to see you up close while you're performing this I think it's really fascinating because even before you said you're working with physicality and subtle changes to go from character to character obviously we have the privilege of kind of getting to watch you as you do it. So it's very very cool. But I was just curious if you have any advice for other people that feel pulled to write whether it's plays whether it's memoir whether it's you know books in general anything if they're feeling pulled towards memoir but they're being held back by that nervous system reaction that you were experiencing what advice do you have to someone who's who feels drawn to that?

SPEAKER_02 26:38

That's a great question because I I do teach memoir writing now. No way so yeah yeah to uh actually to to elder populations like on libraries and my advice would be to everybody has a story you know it's been said and if especially if you're somebody who is 65 plus you even have more of a story and and you might not think your story is valuable but if it comes from your heart and you're speaking the truth you will have a story to tell and what happens is when you start to write a story just write you know just write don't worry get out of your judgment mind and just write the more you write the more you stimulate the imagination and the more you stimulate the imagination that story leads to another story and the other story brings you another story oh I could write about this I could do that oh there was that time so it's the it's just to get that muscle exercised in your brain to get the story out you could always worry about all that other judgment stuff that you might put on it does you know do I have anything to say I still do that you know do I have anything to say will it really matter who cares you know those those voices still come to my head but I'm just gonna say keep writing the story and and it will come out be focused speak the truth and write it as if you're telling the story to the public like what would you want to say how how how sensory do you do you want it to be show don't tell you know just don't make a statement show me how you felt show me what it was create a world so that's what I would say and then eventually after even after 10 weeks of writing one assignment at a time you have like 10 stories. Did you show this to family members in process or give them a heads up or get clearance before their references were on stage no no I didn't I I waited till it actually opened off Broadway for them to finally come because I had done it in a number of other venues before it had that opening and then they came I wanted it to be as polished as possible before they came yeah and in an audience with etiquette so nobody could attack yeah it's a ballsy move Frank and my mother never got to see it she was alive you know but she wasn't very ambulatory and my mother by that time had a lot of emotional instability and so she knew I was writing something Italian she knew I was writing something about my life and of course I would include her and every time she would say I want to see it I would say oh Ma the stairs there's so many stairs and she go okay okay maybe I know I know I know go I said you're gonna be winded by the time you get to the top so you know well there's no speech where yes there's a video but where she is now they're both my parents are deceased now but where where where they are I I I feel them and I feel their support it's funny you know when you write about somebody that you know what has happened for me is I realized the relationship never dies it just changes form.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

So you I I've developed an enormous amount of compassion for my parents well yeah I I agree I've written some things that allowed me to look at my parents as people as opposed to my parents and when you get to that point that you can step back and see their lives and the things that led them to be who they are plus the DNA and all of the other mix of things there's a layer of compassion that happens and perspective that is incredibly valuable.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Yeah. So I waited I waited do you have kids?

SPEAKER_04 30:48

No no children okay so nobody nobody's writing the frank version of this just dogs.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

You know what I I my wife and I looked at each other and you know we we discussed a lot and then it got to the point where we were discussing it so much that we were thinking all right so by the time this child is a teen during the most you know tumultuous years we're gonna be a certain age and I'm thinking I do I want to go through that so we both say to we say to ourselves we'll take care of our own inner child you know for this lifetime and we'll get and we'll get dogs and we'll get dogs. Frank I love that what kind of what kind of dogs we had a Tibetan terrier and uh a little Havanese that just passed me a little while ago so that's what we decided because I don't know it was on one hand I we I just knew we would be good parents and then on the other hand you know I was like oh god the worst thing would be to have to inflict onto them you know if I didn't learn my mistakes right you know because I'm a little bit of a perfectionist that way yeah but well do you have nieces and nephews yes I have a I have a godson who who is like uh very close to me and uh and nieces and nephews yes so that's the best one I get to share that with them.

SPEAKER_04 32:06

Yeah my husband and I have 47 nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews they are an extraordinary bunch so much personality and fun and they have enriched my life to the nth degree yeah it's a gift.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

I love what you said though about we decided we just can take care of my own inner child our own old inner children because it's it is such a blessing to be able to do that as well. And and I also think creatively I feel like when we write and when we do anything creative we're ultimately in communication with the inner child right and and lifting the opportunity or or whatever shame veil might be there to say well let's just explore and let's just paint or let's just write right so I I'm just curious if you feel like this you know this piece was particularly healing for your inner child and and how that's reflected as well.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Absolutely absolutely but sometimes there are some solo shows that use the audience for their own healing you know what I mean and it's a it become a little self-indulgent so like like I said the the best ones I see are the ones that you know you did the work and then you're there to tell the story. But in moments after performing I'll have a little revelation where I because I'll I'll do try something different or improv something always the same line but different and I'll say something to myself wow if I really answered my mother and father that way what would have been the response or would it have changed anything or would they have had a moment of enlightenment you know so that happens sometimes but that inner child part of myself comes up most when the inner child's cool when he tells the story you know that other part of myself will come up when I'm trying to create or make myself crazy when I'm presenting something or something like that. However I just lost a dear friend older than me who was an artist and after he passed I thought to myself there's a lesson he taught me that I didn't realize until afterwards when I was reflecting back on our relationship he looked at all his art with childlike wonder everything was like well I could try this or I could do that oh well let me do this oh I messed up I'm gonna try again and I thought I'm gonna do my damnedness to approach things like that because and then I asked his brother did he ever say this sucks did he ever say you know I don't know what I'm doing did he ever say and he goes well sure I'm sure he felt those moments but his inner child was so full of wonder you know that part of him that he never questioned it everything was another opportunity to embrace you know failure or and I thought I I don't know if that's so easy but he seemed to know what that was about you know so he was a good example.

SPEAKER_04 35:04

That's a perfect way to bring this episode to a close thank you so much for joining us Frank it's been wonderful thank you it's been a pleasure Maggie and Dennis thank you so much and thanks to everyone for joining us for this episode of Meet Me in the Monologue Thank you for listening to Meet Me in the Monologue.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

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