Theater review: Unlike Aurora’s co-stars, ‘Rappaport’ hasn’t aged well

Through June 5. 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays; 10 a.m. Wednesday (May 25 only). $26-$55. Aurora Theatre, 128 E. Pike St., Lawrenceville. 678-226-6222, www.auroratheatre.com.

Bottom line: The two co-stars outshine their material.

The amusing in-joke behind the casting of director David de Vries’ Aurora Theatre production of “I’m Not Rappaport” may be moot to the vast majority of current theatergoers, those who didn’t happen to see Theatrical Outfit’s 1989 Atlanta premiere of the comedy.

Herb Gardner’s Tony-winning play features a pair of ornery octogenarians, Nat and Midge, as they while away their autumn days (and years), sharing a Central Park bench to draw telling observations about old age or to wax nostalgic about their fading pasts. The Jewish Nat is a spinner of tall tales, the black Midge his skeptical foil, but through all of their bantering and bickering, a genuinely affectionate rapport and bond develop between them.

Co-stars Rob Cleveland (Midge) and Kenny Raskin (Nat) feel so right in their Aurora performances that it's nearly inconceivable — somehow even wrong — to think that these two actors also played the same roles in the earlier Outfit version. (As an added kicker, de Vries acted alongside them in a supporting part way back then.)

Cleveland's ensuing career on the local scene has been long and distinguished (e.g., "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Master Harold …," more recently). Raskin subsequently left town for Broadway, Cirque du Soleil and beyond (he's based in Massachusetts).

No doubt in their 50s or 60s by now, some 27 years closer to the actual ages to their characters, Cleveland and Raskin bring to their work here a certain authority and authenticity they had no real means of truly possessing before – not merely a lot of life experience, frankly, but a lot more acting experience, too.

(To be fair, that Outfit show predated even my time on this beat, if just by a year or two, so I missed seeing it. Still, I almost cringe to imagine those 20- or 30-something co-stars wearing a bunch of phony-looking old-age makeup or adopting similarly heightened or artificial physical movements and mannerisms to indicate the agedness of their roles.)

Although it stands to reason that the talents of Cleveland and Raskin have grown only stronger and more refined over time, the same can’t be said for Gardner’s script. De Vries keeps the potentially static play moving at a fairly steady pace, but there’s a tame and tired conventionality about the material that seems to contradict or counteract the free-spirited nature of its protagonists.

Dan Triandiflou and Wendy Melkonian, wonderfully versatile performers both, are mainly wasted in one-note supporting roles. He portrays a Manhattan yuppie trying to weasel Midge out of his job after almost 50 years. She’s Nat’s well-intentioned daughter, who’s forced to lay down the law for him.

Other major conflicts in the plot veer into melodrama involving minor bit characters, ultimately so incidental in the grand scheme of things as to be cast using three less qualified actors (Benjamin Davis, Marcus Hopkins-Turner and Brooke Owens — meh).

The fabulous Central Park set is yet another marvel by designers Isabel and Moriah Curley-Clay.

Nostalgia might be the dreaded disease of old people, as Nat notes at one point — in life, as well as in theater. The recasting of Cleveland and Raskin is a shrewd conceit, but it also threatens to make the already overly cute and precious “I’m Not Rappaport” that much more so.