I’M NOT RAPPAPORT
Squinting through his thick glasses, toting his near empty briefcase, and flailing about with his cane, Nat is a happy misfit who eats conventions for breakfast. Modeled on the playwright’s labor-leader uncle, Nat is an unrepentant old-left agitator who sees every problem as part of the class struggle–and as a perfect excuse for cascades of firebrand rhetoric. He’s the sort of true believer who will try to persuade a mugger to join in solidarity against the real robbers, the rich.
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Putting aside the repetitions and too-safe ending, what works in I’m Not Rappaport is the vibrant exchanges the men share, like the vaudeville sketch that gives the play its title. Punched home by Gardner’s surefire one-liners, Nat and Midge’s feisty squabbles and grudging reconciliations feel as real as overheard bus conversations.
