INTERVIEW: Candice Guardino finds inspiration from family for ‘Italian Bred’
Photo: Candice Guardino will bring her one-woman show to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Photo courtesy of Candice Guardino / Provided with permission.
Comedian Candice Guardino has been using the eccentricities of her family members and the dynamics of the Italian-American experience for inspiration on the stage. She performs impressions of everyone from her father to her grandmother, all done tongue in cheek and with a love for her relatives, her culture and her upbringing in Staten Island, New York.
Guardino will bring her unique brand of theatrical comedy to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Victoria Theater for two shows Saturday, Jan. 26. Under the banner of Candice Guardino’s Italian Bred, the comedy special promises to be a full meal of laughs and maybe even a few tears.
“I would say it’s a theatrical comedy filled with a bunch of impressions of my family that I literally derived from real-life stories that have happened to me, so it’s a full theatrical night of laughs,” Guardino said in a recent phone interview. “There’s some tears. There’s some singing. It is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience with one person on stage having to deal with all of these stories and then doing it with a video screen behind her because there’s a bunch of fun characters that jump on screen with me, so it’s quite a night.”
Growing up, Guardino was a quiet child. She likes to say that she was taking in all of the details of her life in Staten Island, and those details now serve as material on stage.
“I started in a stand-up role, and I would do some impressions,” she said. “And I realized that the best impressions were the ones that were actually real people and based off of people I really knew, so, of course, what better way to do that than impersonate your family.”
After her comedy shows, especially the ones in the New York City area, Guardino often received notes from her family members who were in attendance. One might think they were embarrassed to be poked fun at on stage, but it was the complete opposite, the comedian said.
“It’s interesting because my family gives me notes after the show,” she said with a laugh. “I literally get an earful from my dad telling me, ‘That’s not how I would say it. I would say it like this,’ and my mom will often say to me that she thinks I could write more stuff about her. And my sister would say, ‘Oh, I’m not featured enough,’ so they actually give me notes. They very much enjoy it, and I get critiques at the end.”
Guardino was actually born in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, but spent most of her childhood in Staten Island. Then she moved to “the city” (i.e. Manhattan) for college and even further afield to Los Angeles to kickstart her career.
Still, her memories of Staten Island are strong.
“It’s exactly the same as it is now actually, except there’s no dump,” she said of the borough. “Apparently the garbage has been moved. I grew up with the Staten Island dump. That was the biggest thing we had in Staten Island. I remember driving with my parents down Hylan Boulevard or the Staten Island Expressway, and you had to hold your nose because it smelled so bad. But Staten Island is actually an awesome place to grow up. I loved it. It was great. It had such a family feel. Community was really strong. For me, our front door was always open. There was always people in and out of our house. Our neighbors would be yelling over fences, so growing up as a kid, it was a pretty eccentric place to grow up.”
Although Guardino’s show touches upon Italian-Americans, and many of the jokes are steeped in her upbringing, there’s not much commentary on the well-known stereotypes that have pervaded culture and society.
“People are people,” she said. “For me, I write from real stories and real characters, so everything in my show is just based off real things that have happened. I don’t play into the stereotype any extra because it wasn’t real for me. Family’s family. As it so happens, I’m Italian-American, but I will say it’s not a show about the stereotypes. That’s for sure. It’s not something that you’re going to come and watch the show and see a bunch of Italian stereotypes. There’s a few words in there that I have to say maybe Italian-Americans say more than others, but for sure it is definitely not a show based off the stereotypes. It’s just based off my real family.”
She added: “It’s a lot of fun honestly. I have the most fun playing my grandmother because it’s super-interesting to go from playing my 45-year-old father to a 65-year-old woman who literally is full of cigarette smoke and progressive and dressed not as a traditional grandmother would dress. My grandmother was always dressed in heels and a slip. She just looked 10 years younger than what she really was, and it’s fun doing that and then going to my even-keeled, matter-of-fact father. So it’s definitely a lot of fun.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Candice Guardino’s Italian Bred will play Saturday, Jan. 26 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Victoria Theater in Newark, New Jersey. Click here for more information and tickets.
