What: Over The River And Through The Woods

Who: Theatre Aquarius

Where: Dofasco Centre for the Arts,

190 King William St.

When: Now through April 12

Tickets: 905-522-7815

You have to wonder why Theatre Aquarius waited so long to stage Over The River And Through The Woods. Just about everybody else has done the thing long ago.

Before I bundled off to the Dofasco Centre Friday night for the show's opening, I seriously thought I'd been Over The River And Through The Woods one too many times.

This was number 6. How much could I love it? I expected to be bored to death.

Well, I was wrong.

Director Gina Wilkinson and a crack cast of performers have mined this rather obvious comedy for all it's worth.

We are in the Hoboken home of Frank and Aida Gianelli. It's worn and comfortable, a bit like the old folks who live there.

Each Sunday, Nunzio and Emma Cristano come for dinner. So does grandson Nick.

They love him, of course. Perhaps too much. So when the poor boy announces he's moving far from New Jersey to West Coast Seattle, all hell breaks loose.

Over The River is a play about growing up. It's set in an Italian-American household, but its story is universal.

Like Brian Friel's lovely Irish drama, Philadelphia, Here I Come, this comedy speaks with a heart full to the brim.

It doesn't matter we're in hazy Hoboken, not misty-eyed Dublin. The sadness is still the same. Saying goodbye is never easy.

Closing the door to our well-planted roots is difficult. For years after there is a desperate search through the underbrush, a wandering through the imagination looking for tear-stained moments captured in the freeze-frame of time.

Over The River And Through The Woods is stylized TV sitcom. Like All In The Family or Everybody Loves Raymond, it pushes buttons relentlessly. Of course we're perfectly aware of just how much we're being manipulated. The thing is though we don't give a darn. We just go with the play's natural warmth and cunning sense of humour.

Around the Gianelli's elegantly polished table, the family sits in celebration of lives much closer to the end than they are to the beginning.

This isn't a fast food home. There's no Kentucky Fried in the familiar tub, no McDonald's Big Macs on the graceful platter.

Like the values in this homestead, the food is real, warm and made with love.

The question is, can that love sacrifice itself and find accommodation for a grandson's need to grow up and fly free.

You won't find out here. The resolution of DiPietro's play comes after a very funny first act when brakes are suddenly clamped on, forcing us to live through great pain. Over The River's greatest strength is its ability to embrace truth at the expense of comedy. That means you'll leave the theatre with a smile, but also a tear.

A. Frank Ruffo is wonderful as sweet old Nunzio, a man who still sings Yes Sir, That's My Baby to his wife Emma.

Terry Tweed breaks your heart as his colourful wife, a woman who laughs at life even though she knows there's little of it left.

Add Jerry Franken's brusque, yet touching Frank and Lorna Wilson's grandmotherly Aida and you have a perfect quartet.

Laura Condlln is the best Caitlin O'Hare I've ever seen, making the underwritten role of a young woman longing for love work perfectly.

That brings us to Darren Hynes's Nick Cristano. What a treat to watch his eyes go from annoyed pique to desperate longing. Hynes has the sad-sack face of a Nathan Lane and, like that clever actor, he has the ability to suggest confusion, passion and sad understanding all at once.

The only fly in this delicious ravioli is Dennis Horn's troublesome set.

Over The River is a play with both feet planted in reality. Scrim walls that light up belong to The Glass Menagerie. Half-formed walls, disappearing into nothing, belong to Death of a Salesman. No matter how much you pummel and push DiPietro's play, it has no real sense of illusion.

I walked out of Over The River thinking of my mom and dad and how much I miss them. Now that's nothing to do with fantasy. Like this play, that's the cold kiss of reality.

Gary Smith has written on theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for more than 25 years.