STAGE REVIEW : Heart of ‘Rappaport’ Beats Strong at Hahn

Old age can be a terrifying place.

The betrayals of the body--the stiffening legs, the rheumy eyes, the wavering hands--all mirror an increasingly hostile environment. It’s a world made up of a triple threat: those who ignore the very existence of the elderly, the street thugs who prey upon their weaknesses and relatives whose suffocating kindnesses reduce them to children.

Into this inhospitable world enter odd couple Nat and Midge, characters in Herb Gardner’s “I’m Not Rappaport” at the Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre through Feb. 26.

Nat, an 81-year-old Jewish man, and Midge, an 80-year-old black man, share a Central Park bench, where they drive each other crazy because their coping mechanisms are as different as the cultures they come from.

Midge, a superintendent who knows the score, clings to reality. If people don’t want to see the old, that’s fine. He’ll work the night shift and play the invisible man. If a street punk threatens to beat him up if he doesn’t pay him 3 bucks to be walked home, fine. He’ll pay the toll and say, “Thank you.”

Nat is more from the Blanche du Bois school of thought. He doesn’t tell what’s true so much as what ought to be true.

Is someone trying to take advantage of his friend? He’ll pretend to be a lawyer with a powerful organization that protects the elderly’s rights. Is the punk trying to rob him? Like the good Socialist he still is, Nat will gladly give the kid half the money he has on him--$11--but he will not let the $3 be taken .

Still, if Nat is Blanche, then the world is his Stanley Kowalski, beating him down with reality. He may drive the punk off one day. But the kid will be back the next.

“I’m Not Rappaport,” a Tony-award winning Broadway hit, toured most of the country with stars Judd Hirsch--who picked up his own Tony for Nat--and Cleavon Little. It skipped San Diego, but the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre is presenting the local premiere as its season opener.

The good news is that Don Alan Croll as Nat and Lance Roberts as Midge deliver warm and winning performances that promise to grow over the run.

Croll, in particular, is a luminous study in the chiaroscuro of an indomitable spirit with a swiftly deteriorating body. His grand schemes gain poignancy from their contrast with the age spots on his forehead (kudos to Dianne Holly’s makeup job), the squint of his eyes, his hands quivering like hummingbird wings.

Roberts, in contrast, could show Midge’s age more. He has mastered the role of comic foil; now he needs to take more time with the dramatic reactions. What James A. Strait’s direction needs to emphasize is that Midge, who has the slightly smaller part, is nevertheless the all-important truth teller here.

The supporting cast varies in quality. The best are Allison Brennan as Nat’s daughter, Clara, and David Wright, as a loan shark known as the Cowboy.

The rest of the characterizations lack force. As Danforth, the tenant in Midge’s building who comes to the park to fire Midge, Ken Parratt is curiously calm and non-reactive when Nat tries to pull one of his cons on him.

The biggest puzzle of the production is why the set, by Robert Earl, goes for a two-dimensional Disney-like effect rather than the gritty reality of Nat’s and Midge’s world. Where do these brightly colored, cut-out trees and clear, well-lit tunnel come from, anyway? Hey, guys, this is supposed to be New York. Where are the graffiti? But its flaws are mere scratches on the real star of the show, which is the marvelous script.

For old fans of Gardner’s “A Thousand Clowns,” the good news is that even the despair Gardner attaches to old age has not dimmed his belief in the redemptive power of imagination. For those who still hold a place in their hearts for crazy Murray, the comedy writer in “A Thousand Clowns” who ditched the 9-to-5 life in order to enjoy existence, and then returned to the grind because he loved his child more than himself, he is back in the person of Nat.

Time can ravage the body. But the heart is the final arbiter of whether we are old or young. “I’m Not Rappaport” is a magical tribute to the power of that heart.

“I’m Not Rappaport”

By Herb Gardner. Director is James A. Strait. Costumes by Juli Bohn. Set by Robert Earl. Lighting by Matthew Cubitto. Makeup by Dianne Holly. Stage manager is Claudea Jardot. With Don Alan Croll, Lance Roberts, Allison Brennan, Dana Case, Andrew Marvel, Ken Parratt and David Wright. At 8 p.m. Wednesday--Saturday and this Sunday only, with Sunday matinees at 2 through Feb. 26. At 547 4th Ave., San Diego.