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REVIEWS "A heartfelt one-man show." "Talented, energetic, and very sincetre... Heartbreaking." - Back Stage West "Bring some klennex, damnit!" - Accessibilty Live Off-line Excerpts: Truth be told, I was bracing myself for a fall-out. I mean, how many times can the tale between father and son–the one disregarding the other as a failure, the other trailing his need for self-respect as much as his old man’s good graces long after packing his bags in search of a better life out West? Fittingly, it was like a back-handed smack top th’head which caught me full-bore when Louie Liberti, writer and sole performer of Almost Made leapt up on stage; eager-beaver, puppy-dogging his father’s footsteps as together, he: alive and well; dad: less so, but still the man his son looks up to. ....Lou moves from character to character with a fluid, yet startling grace. Affecting the weariness of his mother to the back-turned snorting of his father to the concerned, grave telephone voices of his sisters calling from the other side of the country..... ....It’s the Big Night—Louie-er, now, re-monikered Lou has just turned 16, and they are heading to the club his father owns, driving there in a white-walled Caddy. Dad’s got one arm leisurely draped over the open window, the steering wheel caught in his strong grip. He drives as fast as he wants, languidly flipping just enough change into the toll baskets to get the bars to come up without really slowing down. He is the King of Cool, and Liberti passes the conversation seamlessly between the bright-boy’s eager falsetto, needing to please and the tough, handsome Man-of-Means’ confidence that his son won’t let him down. ....Almost Made tells you right from the start-just read the title-that Louie’s old man was never a Vito Corleone. Nah, never much more than a has-been who eventually finds the Reagan years a ready coke-market to scrape by on. Not real proud of it, but he’s his own goddamn man, right? And just trying to keep his eye out for the right opportunity... "Carthartic" is one of those trendy-pretentious-bullshit words that people "in recovery" love to use. Goddam, if there isn’t another raging cliche` poking me in the eye! `Cause I’m crying. Sucker-punched with the initial sweetness of dad-&-son, and then hit below the belt with the sheer honest grief in Liberti’s final scenes. Rat-bastard and terribly talented that he is. I hope someday he’ll have to review a play or movie that makes him cry like a little girl. Or little boy.
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