Bridesmaid Connie (Gret Menzies) latches onto audience member Matt Zasadny, of Nanuet, N.Y., at the interactive "Tony 'N' Tina's Wedding." It's all downhill after the wedding ceremony of Tony (Masiello) and Tina (Charlotte Snow), one of the few moments witnessed by the entire audience. Photos by Ronda Churchill.

You mean people pay good money to sit through tortuously overwrought versions of "Wind Beneath My Wings" and "Total Eclipse of the Heart"?

Well yes, when they're not doing the chicken dance or pinning dollars to the bride's dress.

Some people find good reasons to be out of town when wedding invitations arrive in the mail. Others willingly pony up $92.50 for "Tony 'N' Tina's Wedding." Maybe it's because it guarantees the fights, beer-drinking nuns and bartop-dancing strippers left to the whims of good fortune at most weddings.

The original "environmental theater" comedy has been around since 1988, but debuted at the Rio in early 2002, well after some of its less-adept knockoffs. The current edition doesn't seem to attract the same level of casting interest as when the show opened, most noticeably in finding age-appropriate actors to play the older characters.

But the Rio dinner show still does capacity (about 300 people) business seven days a week in the warehouse venue originally built for the aerial troupe De La Guarda. And it has proven to be a sturdy construction, a true ensemble effort that doesn't live or die on the strengths of any one or two performers.

The real difference between "Tony" and, say, the amateurish "The Soprano's Last Supper" at the Harmon Theater, is that principal writer (and original Tina) Nancy Cassaro had a scholarly interest in avant-garde theater.

The two dozen performers talk to you and dance with you but never break character. You only think you see them wink at you. After, say, Tina's light-in-the-loafers brother (Rhett Ashley, recalling Billy Crystal in his "Soap" days) makes a scripted speech, he goes back to his table and tells his mom (Dolly Coulter) "I messed up," at a conversational level only those very close by can hear.

She says she is still proud of him.

The comedy has as much fun with Italian-American stereotypes as any movie, but stops short of pure shtick. Larry Pelligrini, Cassaro's partner and the show's original director, continues to keep a close handle on the local production to keep it grounded in a bizarre reality.

At this performance, the actors interacted with guests that included an actual wedding party, with the bride and friends seated at one table and the groom at another. Another ripple in this fragile reality was the guy in a fanny pack and Smokey the Bear T-shirt, who wasn't a bit shy in jumping up to dance with Alison Mills, who played the stripper girlfriend of Tony's dad (Chris Mayse). You hoped he was one of the paid characters, but sadly, no.

The story is deliberately staged so that everyone gets the high points of the wedding itself and its raucous aftermath, but no one catches all the action or learns everything about every character. This can be frustrating or intriguing, depending on how much you really care. If you're not shy about talking to the characters, you will get a better idea of how the whole thing fits together. For instance, Tina's sister-turned-nun (Desiree Abeyta) is a very recent convert to the order, and she has a thing for one of the groomsmen.

The wedding ritual also provides an unforced structure for the union of working-class New Yorkers Tony (Mike Masiello) and Tina (Charlotte Snow), whose gum-smacking bridal party has cleared the local Sav-on of aquamarine eye shadow. Her favorite song is Bon Jovi's "Livin' On a Prayer" and she announces to the groom, "You better be takin' me more than halfway there."

The audience is led through the wedding ceremony, followed by a pasta-and-chicken buffet dinner at the reception hall of shifty caterer Vinnie Black (Greg Gaskill), dancing to the slick sounds of Donny Dulce (Tony Torres) & Fusion.

When it's all over, the fabric of reality buckles again when the actors, now in their street clothes, use the same restrooms as the patrons they have just entertained. Can you still talk to them? If so, what do you say? The show has lost its novelty factor, but not the singular strangeness of the experience.