Marchetto’s act a paper view of popular icons
By Katie Mitchell
July 27, 2003 9:00 p.m.
Ennio Marchetto, Italian comedian/quick-change
artist/illusionist began his colorful career as a costume designer
for Carnevale, Venice’s famous spring-time masquerade, but
now he parades his designs onstage in an original show where he
spoofs pop-culture icons.
In previous shows, Marchetto has parodied popular and classical
musical stars including the Three Tenors, Celine Dion, Boy George,
Barbara Streisand, Madonna and Marilyn Monroe. If he is not posing
as a music star, he instills life in works of art (like the Venus
De Milo, Mona Lisa and Statue of Liberty) and other pop icons as he
wraps himself in their paper-likeness and performs a short vignette
in that character set to a musical soundtrack. The Venus De Milo,
for example, is horrified when she discovers she has lost two
important appendages.
What sets the Venetian apart from other
“impersonators,” though, is his ingenious use of paper.
Marchetto’s costumes are all made from the colorful stuff,
and with dexterous manipulations he morphs from Queen Elizabeth to
Freddy Mercury and from a sumo wrestler to a can-can dancer.
Marchetto designs his guises with the aid of Sosthen Hennekam,
who studied costume and fashion design in Paris with prestigious
fashion designers like Jean Paul Gaultier. Together the team, who
first collaborated in 1989, has created an innovative,
thought-provoking and hilarious piece that has taken them around
the world.
Not only does Ennio Marchetto elicit laughter, he honestly
considers his subjects and then makes the audience examine the
figures they often unyieldingly accept in popular culture. Who knew
masks could reveal so much?
Marchetto will bring his act to Westwood this week for a
limited run from July 29 to Aug. 3 at the Geffen Playhouse. Order
tickets at www.geffenplayhouse.com or call (310) 208-5454.
