Review: MY OLD LADY at Kansas City Actors Theatre

Currently in performance on the City Stage inside Union Station is the Kansas City Actors Theatre production of "My Old Lady" by the prolific Israel Horovitz.

According to the playwright, "My Old Lady" sets up a situation with an amusing albeit somewhat bent premise similar to the setup to a story joke. We can guess at an outcome, but Horovitz wants us surprised as his story develops.

The play is set in a Paris apartment overlooking the Luxembourg Gardens. Mathias Gold (David Fritts) is the estranged son of a now deceased, post-World War II, Jewish émigré named Max Gold. Max moved to New York, married, succeeded in business, and sired three sons, but remained curiously removed from the family. Max survived his wife and his twin sons. He lived his life as a lifelong Francophile punctuated by long absences to France on business. Now Max has passed on and Mathias, the youngest son, is the sole survivor of the family.

Mathias has traveled to Paris to administer The Remains of Max's estate. He has long since soured on his father, and the fact that Max has left most of his liquid assets to trusts and charities has not redeemed him to his son.

Mathias has inherited a spacious Paris apartment where the action of the play takes place, a stack of books in French, and one gold watch. He has come to Paris to sell the property and acquire for himself a grubstake to fund the remainder of his life. The plan falls apart when he encounters a peculiarity of French law called "en viager" in the person of 92 year-old Mathilde Girard (Kathleen Warfel).

Mathilde and her daughter Chloe (Jan Rogge) live in the apartment. Max had purchased the apartment from Mathilde 43 years ago "en viager" at far below market price. According to French law, the seller of a property bought this way continues to live there and receives a monthly fee for the remainder of his or her life. Not only can Mathias not sell his inheritance, he must pay Mathilde 2400 Euros each month.

Mathias Gold is a sixty-ish New Yorker who believes life and his father have dealt him a rotten hand. He sees Max as having been cold and disappointed in him. Mathias is an unpublished author, penniless, thrice divorced, deeply indebted, and a loser of a man. He finds himself stuck in Paris without even the price of an airline ticket back to New York. Instead of a potential grubstake, Mathias' paternal inheritance has turned into a drain on his already more than fragile finances.

Mathilde takes mercy on Mathias and offers him her late husband's trophy room during his stay in Paris, but she charges Mathias rent. He pays her with the gold watch.

Chloe returns home from work and unexpectedly finds a stranger, Mathias, in her house. Even after explanations are rendered, Chloe is openly hostile toward Mathias. She knows something that the audience and Mathias do not. Mathilde and the now deceased Max have been the loves of each other's life. Both were married to other people, but both chose to remain unhappily so and see each other when they could.

Mathias is shockingly unaware. Mathilde and Chloe are likewise unaware of the central sadnesses that have permeated Mathias's life. Act II explores the possibilities and finally resolves.

All three actors do a workmanlike to excellent job with their difficult characters. You want to like Mathias and David Fritts makes that possible. Kathleen Warfel inhabits the 92 year-old skin of Mathilde. Jan Rogge is appropriately careworn although why is not immediately clear. Dialogue has a sardonic quality to it that makes you want to smile through most of the first act. It turns out all these people have interlocking secrets.

Director Darren Sextro has guided his cast to creating contentious, but not irredeemable relationships. The actors are called upon for a range of emotion that might be better addressed a little more internally. Sextro has generally guided his small team to a positive result.

Set Designer Bret Engle transports the audience to Paris in autumn. One can imagine the apartment once being very grand. Lighting Designers Kylor Greene and Shelbi Arndt set an appropriate mood.

Tickets for KCAT's "My Old Lady" are available on the KCAT website or by telephone at 816-235-6222. Performances continue through January 29.

Photo courtesy of Kansas City Actor's Theatre.

To post a comment, you must register and login.