Once you see “My Old Lady,” you won’t wonder how playwright Israel Horovitz’s son Adam grew up to become a Beastie Boy. The guy must have serious father-son issues.
I kid. I love the Beastie Boys.
But seriously …
In Daddy Horovitz’s 1996 play, a dead man has bequeathed to his long-estranged American son a valuable Paris apartment. It’s a lifesaving gesture to a now 50-year-old loser who’s broke, aimless and still nursing the paralyzing after-effects of bad-dad’s parenting four decades before. Bad-dad gave every other dime to charity, but at least money from the sale of this apartment will allow Jim a fresh financial start.
Only here’s your real post-mortem surprise, sonny boy: An old lady is living there, she’s not going anywhere, and she’s allowed by French law to stay until she dies. And guess what? You’re on the hook to pay her fees – a cool $3,000 a month.
“He stuck it to me again,” Jim says. Indeed. But that’s not even close to the worst surprise bad-dad has left for this poor, pathetic sap.
“My Old Lady” is a family-secrets mystery and a stifling, Ibsenesque parlor drama – save for a real tenderness that runs underneath its cruel premise. It’s a fascinating character study about the relationships Jim (Ken Street) makes with Mathilde (Patty Mintz Figel) and her oddly strident daughter Chloe (Paige Lynn Larson). Is it possible bad-dad had some altruistic reason for wanting this son and these women to meet up?
Nah … bad-dad’s just a jerk.
But the son is just Charlie Brown, all grown up. Street’s Jim is a bald, overweight, self-hating wretch. He speaks every line with bitter, self-pitying cheerfulness that explains in full why this man remains utterly alone. Still, Street manges to make him a lovable loser.
At age 94, Mathilde is the only free spirit among these three. She taught English to Francois Mitterand, dallied with Henry Miller and had a fling with Django Reinhardt. She’s a bohemian old lady who has lived fully and with no regrets. Part of the mystery will be discovering why her daughter is such a sourpuss.
“My Old Lady” continues a string of small, successful stagings at Golden’s Miners Alley Playhouse, which is gaining in reputation for simply telling solid stories. This one, directed by Rick Bernstein and beautifully designed by Richard H. Pegg, is strongly performed, especially by the two women.
Figel must have a 12-year-old’s blood running through her magnanimous, childlike heart. Larson, an actor with few peers in embodying strong, middle-aged women, turns a thankless role into a heartbreaking one.
Street has the toughest job. But while he finds an easygoing and colloquial naturalness in his committed and passionate performance, two pieces of advice: Don’t accompany every single line with that ironic, sardonic laugh. And for Israel’s sake: Close that robe!
Horowitz’s storytelling has several glaring continuity problems … If Mathilde really is 94, that means she had Chloe when she was 44; but she told Jim she was in her early 20s. Regardless, this is complex storytelling without a clear protagonist from a writer who is always shifting our sympathies.
Eventually Jim falls into a cesspool of self-pity. “Is there no such thing as a moral stand?” he rails in drunken, obnoxious self-righteousness.
OK, enough, Jim. The answer is no. Not in this story. If there is a universal truth here, it’s that when kids are unlucky enough to have been let down by their fathers, yes, that can haunt them into adulthood. Jim’s father behaved badly, but even if there were mitigating reasons for his behavior, children can never see shades or degrees when it comes to their parents – not at any age. That makes adult Jim domestic roadkill.
Still, I can just hear the advice my own father would have given a now 50-year-old Jim: “Yes, it stinks to be let down by our parents. But at some point, you have to stop using them as an excuse and take responsibility for your own life. It’s called self-determination.
“So get over it, Jim … because you’re really starting to bug the (bleep) out of me.”
Couldn’t have said it better, Ralph.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“My Old Lady” | *** RATING
Miners Alley Playhouse, 1224 Washington Ave., Golden. Written by Israel Horovitz. Directed by Rick Bernstein. Starring Ken Street, Patty Mintz Figel and Paige Lynn Larson. Through Oct. 27. 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 6 p.m. Sundays. 1 hour, 55 minutes. $18-$20 303-935- 3044 or .
