I'm Not Rappaport
Picture Murray Burns of A Thousand Clowns as an 81-year-old social activist, railing against injustices. Place him with the grounded realist Midge, an 80-year-old African-American, and the two men with gray goatees become a modern version of Don Quixote and Sancho. Only the windmills are thugs and pushers and an apartment complex going co-op next month. And society regards Nat and Midge as "ghosts" who belong in a "Home for the Forgotten." Rappaport loses credibility when the pair plays mobsters to fool a hoodlum, but the play blends an unpopular theme, discrimination against the elderly, with what you could call "sit-down" comedy routines, since Nat and Midge "perform" on a Central Park bench and are very funny. In the Scripps Ranch production (featuring an arched masonry footbridge straight from NYC), Charlie Riendeau sustains Nat's intensities admirably and gives his tall tales an improvisational feel. Noel Award-winner Antonio "TJ" Johnson deftly unreels Midge's barriers and gives him a practical wisdom. It's as if Midge has already read the play and knows he should change benches, but after all, the stories do entertain and keep both men's spirits young.
Worth a try.
When
Ongoing until Saturday, October 10, 2009
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 8pm |