THEATER REVIEW : Random Acts Mark ‘Beginning at the End’

“Beginning at the End” (Comenzando al Final), a Bilingual Foundation of the Arts production at Los Angeles Theatre Center’s Theatre 3, has a title meant to be taken literally. In Jorge Luis Albertella’s arbitrary and predictable play, Matilde (Margarita Stocker), a sweet yet indomitable old widow, chafes at having to live with her insensitive daughter and her family. Longing for independence, Matilde ultimately decides to move out and make a new life on her own.

Well, not quite on her own. Although Matilde delivers a rousing feminist curtain speech at play’s end, Matilde just happens to have an elderly suitor tucked away in the wings.

Albertella’s warmly likable characters and flair for dialogue cannot conceal the fact that his comedy-drama, set in an unspecified Latin American country, is riddled with holes in logic and plot.

Matilde, who has maintained a degree of financial independence despite her scheming son-in-law Jose (Tonyo Melendez), abruptly resumes a correspondence with her old friend Clara (Liane Schirmer), who years ago emigrated to California with her son and his family. Clara, like Matilde, has been reduced to a level of onerous dependence on her children, but all that seems about to change when Matilde convinces her epistolary soul mate to move back home and get an apartment with her.

However, the fact that Clara regularly clutches her chest and announces that she has heart trouble leads us to believe that Matilde just better have a contingency plan. And what a plan he is. In the park one day, Matilde meets Domingo (Roberto Bonanni), a handsome widower. Within sentences, Domingo is proclaiming his undying attachment.

Matilde’s romance with Domingo is only one example of the plot’s randomness. More grievous is the fact that the play’s patently contrived happy ending punches the dentures out of any points Albertella is trying to make about women’s status in society and the plight of the elderly.

Margarita Galban directs with the bright, vibrant brush strokes of a theatrical cartoon strip. The acting is very broad, a tack that works well in the lighthearted first act, but when the second act turns lugubrious, the farcical edge is blunted. Only Johanna Siegmann, who plays Matilde’s grouchy and disillusioned daughter Marta, successfully makes the transition from comedy to soap opera. In fact, Marta’s dawning realization that she may some day also be at the mercy of an insensitive daughter is the most affecting moment in the play.

* “Beginning at the End” (Comenzando al Final), Los Angeles Theatre Center, Theatre 3, 514 S. Spring St. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Opens in Spanish this weekend, then plays in English and Spanish on alternating weekends. Ends June 18. $15. (213) 225-4044. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.