My Old Lady

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Responsibility and accountability, ah-h, the major issues surrounding Israel Horovitz’s charming play, My Old Lady, currently spicing the stage at Miners Alley Playhouse.

Patty Mintz Figel and Ken Street in the Miner’s Alley production of My Old Lady.

Directed by Rick Bernstein, on a Parisian apartment set perceptively designed by Richard Pegg, the three characters come vibrantly to life through the strength and expertise of Patty Mintz Figel, Paige Lynn Larson, and Ken Street.

Thoughtful, provocative, very funny, My Old Lady takes us to Paris, France, demonstrating what happens when three unlikely people become entangled in each other’s lives. Raising questions on the side of who is responsible for what and who needs to be accountable to whom, My Old Lady stirs the mind while providing a good many giggles and hearty chuckles with a couple of gasps thrown in for good measure.

Figel plays a 94-year old woman, sensitive about her age, insisting she is only 92. That’s about the only thing Madame Mathilde Gifford is sensitive about. Straight forward, Mathilde pulls few punches carrying a determined hefty sense of humor with just a tad of self-induced arrogance.

She lives with her daughter in an elegant simply furnished Parisian apartment over looking the Jardin Luxembourg.

As Mathilde is loose as a goose with words and determination, her daughter Mademoiselle Chloe Gifford, richly played by Larson, is as uptight on an E string on a violin. A teacher at the school her mother once owned, the never married Choloe wears her soul and emotions as tightly bound as the bun on her head.

While napping, Mathilde awakens with a wide-eyed start when Mathias Gold bursts into the apartment. Insisting he knocked heavily on the door, he discovers it open, letting himself in. Ken Street wraps himself in the self-proclaimed American looser with an easygoing fluidity quickly catching the eye.

Mathias as startled as Mathilde, announces he now owns the apartment. His father, Max, died leaving the apartment to him along with a few French books. This became his big break. A writer, three times divorced, with little money jangling in his jeans, Mathias buys a one-way ticket to Paris with high hopes. He will sell the apartment allowing the money to start his life over.

He’s in for a big-time surprise. He can’t sell the apartment. Under Parisian law, known as a viager, the tenant has the right to live there until she dies. Max purchased the apartment several years ago under market value. Not only can Mathias not sell the apartment, he, as the new owner, is responsible for the tenant’s maintenance fees.

There he stands with one suitcase, no money, and no place to stay. Generous to a fault, in her grand sophisticated manner, Mathilde suggests he could stay there, but of course, expected to pay rent.

Hiding behind a wall of sarcastic humor, and a love for liquor, Mathias, who doesn’t like his name, insists his friends call him Jim, engages in a repartee game with Mathilde he can never win. She is always one step ahead of him, When Choloe discovers his presence, there is an instant clash between her rigid nature and his easy going bitter sweet humor.

It doesn’t take much liquor for Jim to begin to spill out his resentment toward his father who made frequent trips to Paris.

These are not three strangers. These are three people tied to each other by circumstances beyond their control. Slowly the unknown relationship begins to unfold. The man Jim knew as his father is very different than the man Mathilde knew.

The looser Jim becomes through the aid of alcohol, the easier his sarcastic humor spills trough his pores, the more tightly wrapped Choloe becomes.

Figel, Larson, and Street play off each other with electric flares, defining each personality in sharp contrast to each other. All three boast and hide pieces of their being in poetic synchronization. Figel provides a sharp brittleness to a spry independent “Old Lady”, while Street’s physical fluidity flows with astonishing coordinated rhythm for Mathias, and Larson boxes Choloe in with firm rigidity and emotional depletion.

Figel and Larson handle the French accents with consistent accuracy. Horowitz ingeniously intersperses the dialogue with French. In spite of the foreign words, the characters’ animated gestures define the intent.

Karalyn Pytel’s lighting design matches the up hill down hill spiraling revelations of the characters’ connection to each other.

Light, amusing comedy flows easily through the first act until Mathilde ignites a bomb. This is a play actors could easily run away in the pacing. These three nailed the pacing to the wall, allowing the revelations to carry them to the next level. Street’s Jim reveals anger and resentment toward his father building in a natural but calculated tinker toy design, while Figel’s Mathilde chooses carefully the next bomb she ignites in his face.

The electrical chemistry between Jim and Choloe explode in their faces with a romantic connection enabling her to literally let her hair down. Larson realistically allows Chloe to feel things, and say things she never before trusted herself to feel or say. When push comes to shove with Mathilde, she is forced to ignite one more bomb.

At the end, Mathias who now understands where his name came from makes a startling decision. Right wrong or indifferent, it is probably the first defining decision he has made in his entire life. It is interesting to speculate how this decision ultimately affects Mathilde and Choloe.

Much has been written and said about Mathilde what appears to be self-absorbed decisions in terms of responsibility and accountability. At the same time, much needs to be said about Mathias’ lack of responsible accountability in blaming his father for all of his apparent failures. It raises probing questions on human nature that so wants to blame others whether it is family, friends, or circumstances as excuses for not being, not becoming, not doing, not achieving.

The direction, the acting, the script, the set, the lighting, the costuming present such a complete picture of engaging believable complexity, the mind becomes free to probe its own questions without missing a single moment of interaction that moves one to the edge of the seat.

To miss Miners Alley production of My Old Lady is almost an affront to the sensibilities of the power of theatre and the desires of human nature.