Make Your Mama Cry

He's acted for Spike Lee. He's performed locally at Theatre Rhino, and with the Magic Theatre. He's been on Broadway, and he's been on TV — in Oz. Carlo D'Amore's got chops, all right. His one-man show, the semi-autobiographical No Parole, has gotten good reviews and has been extended. Short version: This play sounds like a safe bet. The title refers to the life sentence most of us have been slapped with: family. (We feel the subtitle should be "No time off for good behavior, either.") But No Parole's situation is even more dramatic than most: The play finds an adult son taking care of his mother, who's been in prison. She's also brilliant, and ill, and the pair live in an illegal New York City apartment as the son narrates his childhood memories of their immigration to the U.S. from Peru. We were thinking "Pedro Almodóvar prize for melodrama" even before we heard (from the producer, but still) that between the cocaine jokes, you can expect "quiet sobs — usually heard from the mothers in the audience." No Parole plays tonight and Aug. 12.