His big fat Canadian hit: Montreal writer Steve Galluccio's gay family comedy Mambo Italiano is a runaway success onstage--and the movie version is due out soon. (theater).

Urban gay audiences may find comfort in the familiarity of the story line of Steve Galluccio's coming-out comedy Mambo Italiano. After all, its central character faces much the same dilemma Harvey Fierstein did 20 years ago in his groundbreaking Torch Song Trilogy: How do you do justice to both your gay identity and your very clueless traditional family?

In Fierstein's work the central struggle was played out with his Jewish mother. In Galluccio's the main character is forced to grapple with his entire extended Italian clan as well as the relatives of his lover, who is also coming out.

And since its premiere three years ago in a French-language version in Montreal, the show has risen to near Torch Song--level success. The French version was held over, and then the show debuted in English, breaking all box-office records at Montreal's leading English-language theater, the Centaur. Mambo has been heralded for its ability to bring people into the theater who normally don't go, including tens of thousands from Montreal's conservative Italian community. "I think we probably did effect some change [in their attitudes]," says Galluccio, who's become something of a hero in Montreal's Little Italy.

Since then, Mambo has been remounted in Montreal and in January had a major Toronto premiere, brought to the city by Canada's preeminent theatrical gurus, the Mirvishes. Meanwhile, fall saw production of the film version, also penned by Galluccio and featuring Paul Sorvino, slated for a sununer release.

"I still can't quite believe all of this has happened," says the soft-spoken Galluccio, 42, who writes mainly for Canadian French-language TV but got his start as a playwright on Canada's Fringe theater festival circuit, which spans several major cities and attracts hundreds of thousands of fans each summer. "It's like a fairy tale."

Galluccio says he has drawn heavily on his Italian heritage but has also relied on his childhood experiences watching such '70s TV staples as All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Rhoda. The sitcom overtones have given rise to criticisms of Mambo, but Galluccio brushes those aside. "I've never hidden the fact that I've drawn inspiration from TV," he says. "Obviously it works, because there are people coming again and again to see this." As for the charge that his play is brimming with cheap Italian caricature, fuhgedaboutit. Audience response, says Galluccio, proves that Mambo Italiano is the real thing: "A number of Italians came up to me [after seeing the play] and said, `Were you hiding in my living room?'"

Now that Mambo is set to hit the big screen, Galluccio is grappling with comparison to another runaway success story--the box-office smash My Big Fat Greek Wedding. To those who see Mambo Italiano as purely an attempt to mine more ethnic gold, Galluccio gently reiterates that his story is his own. "I'm very happy for the people behind that film," he says. "I saw it and really liked it. But I was writing mine at the same time, so make no mistake: This really wasn't a case of my following their lead."

Hays is the associate editor of the Montreal Mirror and a columnist for The Globe and Mail.