The Last Act of Lilka Kadison

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman

A memory play should say something about the person having the memory, but in The Last Act of Lilka Kadison, it’s hard to make a connection between the caricatured curmudgeon reflecting on her past and the bright, sweet 17-year-old self she is recalling.

Collaborated on by five writers from Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago, where it premiered, and directed by Dan Bonnell, the play revolves around an elderly woman, Lilith “Lilka” Fisher (Mindy Sterling), who lost her family in the Holocaust; she escaped thanks to the savvy of a street performer, Ben Adler (Nicholas Cutro), who happened to be wooing her just at the time of the Nazi raid.

At 87, Lilith has transformed into a bad-tempered biddy, a closed-minded bigot who maltreats her well-spoken Pakistani-born caregiver (Usman Ally, in a fine performance) and remains alienated from her son, whose phone calls she scorns. Lately, she’s been having visions from the past: re-enactments of her brief romance with Adler, a skeptical secular Jew and all-around talent, whose storied shenanigans pay homage to the once-flourishing Yiddish theater.

Rather than detailing what else might have happened over a 70-year lifespan, the play returns again and again to that particular romantic episode in Lilith’s life. Both Cutro and Brittany Uomoleale, who portrays the younger Lilka, are talented and appealing. But their sequences together are repetitive. (A single scene in which Uomoleale’s curious young girl becomes drawn to Cutro’s edgy artist would have sufficed.)  Additionally, a lot of time is given to displaying Adler’s skills and to the kinds of corny jokes that eventually made their way into American vaudeville.  Cutro does a bang-up job, but his charm can’t compensate if what he’s doing isn’t your preferred kind of entertainment.

Ultimately, many plot questions are left unanswered, including exactly what triggers the old woman’s predictable change of heart and embracing acceptance of both her caregiver and her son.  Sterling’s single-note superciliousness never gives us a reason to root for Lilith, and though plays about Holocaust survivors are almost by definition heart-wrenching, I left this one dry-eyed, feeling released from confinement after 87 restless minutes.

Falcon Theater, 4252 Riverside Dr., Burbank; Wed.- Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 4 p.m.; through April 19. (818) 955-8101, www.falcontheatre.com.