‘Tommy and Me’ at People’s Light is the perfect playoff season treat
A sure way to win over Philadelphians is through undying Eagles loyalty and dissing the Dallas Cowboys. Famed sportswriter Ray Didinger uses both these tactics in a theatrical retelling of his lifelong connection with late Eagles legend Tommy McDonald.
Didinger’s Tommy and Me, which runs at People’s Light, through Feb. 1, opens with Ray (Matt Pfeiffer) reading a handwritten speech by Tommy (Tom Teti), who restlessly paces back and forth across the single-set stage. “You’re not laughing,” Teti’s character notes with disappointment.
Then Pfeiffer’s Ray looks to the crowd at the intimate Steinbright Stage. “I can’t do this to my childhood hero,” he says.
The play, directed by Joe Canuso, then flashes back to a young Ray, played by a charismatic Christian Giancaterino. At 8, he sits in his grandfather’s Southwest Philly bar, glued to Eagles football games and answering team trivia for soda refills. It’s an obsession that would later blossom into a career covering the NFL.
The 5-foot-9 and 175-pound McDonald was his favorite player. While Didinger’s friends were headed to the Jersey Shore for summer, his family drove to Hershey, Pa., to watch McDonald at the Eagles training camp.
Every time he sees a young Tommy (Frank Nardi Jr.), Giancaterino’s bright-eyed Ray runs over to carry his helmet, then walks back to admire the speedy receiver from afar.
The Eagles selected the wiry halfback in the third round of the 1957 NFL draft. And by McDonald’s fourth season, the Pro Bowl receiver caught the go-ahead touchdown to seal the team’s 17-13 NFL Championship victory over Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers.
The winning catch marked Lombardi’s only playoff defeat and cemented McDonald in Eagles lore for eternity. But McDonald’s name never made it to the Hall of Fame ballot. That was until Didinger, who later became an award-winning sports writer and broadcaster, started lobbying for his childhood idol.
When McDonald was finally called to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, McDonald (then 64) asked Didinger to be his presenter, not knowing his long history of fandom. And that’s where the production dials up the emotional and entertainment factors.
All the flashbacks pay off in heartwarming exchanges and frustrating arguments between the two protagonists.
Pfeiffer’s Ray finally tells Tommy that he was the kid who carried his helmet back in Hershey. The same kid, who Tommy affectionately called a “walking encyclopedia,” is now the man telling him not to read out his wacky speech.
Didinger’s script has the details expected from a sports journalist of his caliber. But the story and the lively performances from the four-person cast are entertaining enough to maintain the attention of viewers unfamiliar with McDonald’s career.
The hook is the universal frustration of nonrecognition, and the subsequent triumph that comes with years of hard labor being rewarded, both as a fan and as an idol.
Didinger’s immersive storytelling, Canuso’s poignant direction, and the believable performances from Pfeiffer, Teti, Giancaterino, and Nardi bring the many layers of the play alive.
Like McDonald’s 35-yard catch in the 1960 NFL Championship Game, Didinger’s play clinches a win.
– The Philadelphia Inquirer