November 11, 2009

Artist peddles show in second career

By John Gleason

The character “Mario the Peddler” is a self-described humorist and philosopher, someone who has lived a full life and who wants to share his outlook. In a one-hour stage performance using the magic of imagination, this purveyor of truth shares his view on life and message of love with anyone who wants to listen.

Mario is the brainchild of speaker, playwright and actor Tony Bottagaro, a former real estate developer now author and performer who calls himself “a social activist with a spiritual perspective.”  His goal is to share the Gospel message of love, justice and peace.

A native of New York, Bottagaro who now calls Colorado his home, has had the opportunity to speak with members of Congress and religious leaders around the world, including Pope John Paul II.

The inspiration for Mario and the curbstone faith he shares traces its origins to a retreat Bottagaro participated in.  Recalling the experience, Bottagaro said that at the conclusion of the retreat he had a feeling come over him like nothing he had experienced before, filling him with an urgency to share the message of Christ’s love through what he calls “street sense spirituality.”

“It was like I was embedded with oneness,” he told the Denver Catholic Register, “a feeling of divine love.”

In 2006, Bottagaro wrote a historical novel called “The Poet, The Count and The Peddler.”  It’s a story of a Sicilian immigrant who arrives in the United States in 1923.  Throughout his life, the man maintains a quest for justice, love and peace.  In his later years, he becomes a peddler traveling the city talking with people and spreading the good news using the trinkets he sells as metaphors in telling his stories

“I chose fiction because it gives people a sense of reality,” he said.  “There are so many non-fiction books telling us how to do this and do that; I figured to take a different approach.”

In the novel, Mario is a guy who is battered about by daily struggles—some he has control over, others he doesn’t.  But he never gives up in his quest for love and peace.  In the twilight of his life he becomes a peddler, which is the part of the book that the stage show is based on. 

“I keep it low key,” Bottagaro said about the spiritual message the peddler shares.  “There is no pounding the pulpit or anything that would remind you of (the fictional con man evangelist) Elmer Gantry. It’s a simple message that what people are doing to others, they’re doing to themselves.”

The most recent performance of “Mario the Peddler” was held last month at the Rialto Theater in Loveland to raise money for Angel House, a nonprofit organization that helps homeless people get back on their feet. Most of the shows Bottagaro does are for charities.

“The message of Christ is love,” Bottagaro said.  “It’s not theory, it does work and we need to trust it everyday.  If people come away with the hope that they can become who they truly are, then I’ll be a happy camper.”
For more information, visit online at www.mariothepeddler. com.