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I'm Not Rappaport is a 1996 American buddy comedy-drama film [1] written and directed by Herb Gardner, starring Walter Matthau and Ossie Davis. Based on Gardner's play of the same name, the film focuses on two elderly New York City men – Nat Moyer, a cantankerous left-wing Jew, and Midge Carter, an African-American man – who spend their ...
With Walter Matthau, Ossie Davis, Amy Irving, Craig T. Nelson. Two old men - a white former radical, and a black retired janitor - strike up an unusual and funny friendship on a park bench in New York, where they deal with family, drug dealers, and the pitfalls of age.
- (1.9K)
- Comedy, Drama
- Herb Gardner
- 1996-12-24
Radical 81-year-old Nat Moyer (Walter Matthau) spends most of his time talking and arguing with his old friend Midge Carter (Ossie Davis) on a bench in Central Park.
- (16)
- Herb Gardner
- PG-13
- Walter Matthau
- Introduction
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Media Adaptations
- Themes
- Topics For Further Study
- Style
- Historical Context
- Compare & Contrast
Herb Gardner's I'm Not Rappaport was first published in 1986 in New York. Gardner first got the idea for the play when he was writing in New York's Central Park. He witnessed two animated old men, one white and one black, who would alternate between sitting quietly and yelling at each other. This strange friendship intrigued Gardner, who used it as...
Gardner was born on December 28, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. He attended New York's High School of Performing Arts from which he graduated in 1952. The same year, his first play, The Elevator, a one-act play, was produced. Gardner made a name for himself professionally as a cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune in the 1950s. Here, he created the comi...
Act 1
I'm Not Rappaport begins with Nat sitting on a park bench in New York's Central Park, where all of the action in the play takes place, wondering what he was talking about. His companion on the bench, Midge, informs Nat that he has not been listening to anything that Nat was saying. Right away, the cantankerous interplay between these two eighty-year-old characters is established. As Nat and Midge continue their conversation, the audience finds out that Nat has been talking at Midge for a week...
Act 2, Scene 1
Nat gets out of the hospital the next day and arrives back at the park, this time with a walker. Although he is physically slower, he is animated about his encounter with Gilley, which he considers a triumph, thinking that Gilley will not return. Nat's daughter, Clara, arrives at the park bench, and she is instantly concerned about Nat's injuries. She also informs Nat that she is not going to be part of his schemes anymore. Nat says that he is concerned Clara is trying to put him in a home. N...
Act 2, Scene 2
The next evening, Nat and Midge sit on the park bench dressed up like the mob members that they are playing. Nat quizzes Midge to make sure he remembers all of the details and when the Cowboy arrives to collect his money from Laurie, Nat plays the part of a mob boss. He tries to act threatening, but it does not work, and the Cowboy sees through the act. He grabs Nat and starts to shake him, but Midge comes to Nat's rescue, brandishing the knife that Gilley dropped. The Cowboy backs off into t...
Midge Carter
Midge Carter is an eighty-year-old man who works as a superintendent in an apartment building and spends his days in the park. When he first meets Nat, a week before the play starts, Nat tells Midge a number of tall tales. Midge gets frustrated at all of these false stories and repeatedly says that he is going to leave Nat alone and go somewhere else. However, Nat has a vitality that Midge cannot ignore, and against his better judgment, he stays and listens to Nat. On a certain level, Midge a...
Clara
Clara is Nat's daughter, who worries about her father's mental condition and health. From the moment she arrives, Clara makes it clear that she would rather have her father living with her or in a geriatric home where he will be physically safe. Nat tries to prevent this by creating stories that get him off the hook, but ultimately all of his stories backfire. Clara threatens legal action if Nat does not start coming to the Senior Center on a daily basis, and Nat finally agrees.
The Cowboy
The Cowboy is Laurie's drug dealer. When Laurie fails to pay him his money, he beats her up and threatens her. When he comes back at the appointed time to collect the money, Laurie is not there. Instead, Nat is there, and he acts like he is a mob boss to scare away the Cowboy. Unfortunately, his scheme does not work. When the Cowboy becomes violent, Midge threatens him with Gilley's knife. However, the Cowboy ultimately beats up Midge, who lands in the hospital for almost two weeks.
I'm Not Rappaport was adapted as a film in 1996 by Universal Studios. The film was written and directed by Gardner and featured Walter Matthau as Nat and Ossie Davisas Midge. It is available on bot...
The Power of Illusions
From the very beginning of the play, Nat reveals himself to be a master of illusions. He is able to make Midge, Midge's boss, and even his own daughter believe the tall tales that he is telling. Despite himself, Midge gets caught up in these stories because Nat knows how to tell a tall tale without making it seem like one. For example, in his first story, Nat says that he is a spy for the government and that they add money to his social security check every month for doing nothing. Nat says,...
Age Discrimination
Midge is not the only one who is susceptible to Nat's captivating stories. In a brilliant improvised speech, Nat assumes the identity of a lawyer and takes on Mr. Danforth, Midge's boss, when Danforth announces that they are going to be letting Midge go from his apartment superintendent position. Midge, whose vision is somewhat impaired, was spotted walking into a wall in the apartment building. During his speech, Nat writes this off as racial imbalance, something that Danforth does not belie...
The Reality of Aging
Unfortunately, as the play progresses, Nat loses both his illusions and his freedoms and must come to terms with the fact that he is an old man. In the beginning of the play, when Midge pushes him to tell the truth, Nat does get serious, at least for a minute. Nat says, "The truth? What's true is a triple By-Pass last year at Lenox Hill, what's true is…. a Social Security check that wouldn't pay the rent for a chipmunk." These are some of the harsh facts of aging that Nat tries to ignore by t...
Research the various ways that the elderly are discriminated against today. Find at least one organization devoted to supporting the elderly and write a description of this organization, including...Find another culture, from any point in history, in which the elderly were revered. Write a short report about this culture focusing on the ways in which the elderly contributed to their culture.Find an older man or woman, from any point in history who made a significant contribution to science or technology. Write a short biography about this individual, including a detailed description o...Research the various forms of geriatric care available today. Find economic figures that show how much Americans spend on these forms of care each year. Plot all of this on a large chart, including...Setting
The story is set in Manhattan's Central Park, which is essential to the story. The entire play takes place on a park bench that Nat and Midge share. Though Gardner could technically have chosen any park bench in any park, he chose Central Park—and for good reason. Throughout the play, Nat and Midge demonstrate their resilience against a young urban society that includes thugs and drug dealers. During the 1980s especially, New York was often synonymous with drugs and crime in many minds. Gardn...
Dialogue
Although the setting is important, it works in a subtle manner. Most audience members will not focus on the setting because the dialogue is much more prevalent. Essentially, the play is a series of conversations between two old men on a park bench, with some dialogue between the two men and other, secondary, characters thrown in. However, if this simple explanation were all the play had to offer, it would not be as popular as it is. The play is noted for the interplay between Nat and Midge, w...
Foreshadowing
Although Nat's stories and deceptions are entertaining, Gardner gives clues that this cannot possibly last forever. At several points in the play, he foreshadows or predicts events that happen later. For example, when Nat's daughter, Clara, is introduced, she is upset that she has had to cover for Nat with Danforth. Clara says, "I came to tell you it's the last time! No more calls—" Without Clara helping Nat by assuming the various identities he pins on her, it is only a matter of time before...
Spies and Terrorism
In the play, Nat makes up many stories and changes identities frequently. In one such identity, he pretends to be a spy. When Gardner first produced the play, this would have resonated with audiences, who were living through the last years of the cold war. This political conflict between democracy and communism—and more specifically, between the United States and the Soviet Union—lasted more than four decades. Unlike previous wars that featured physical battles, this conflict was highlighted...
The Mafia
Nat also poses as a Mafia boss in one scene in the play. At the time when Gardner was producing the play, the Mafia, especially the New York Mafia, was in the news. On February 26, 1985, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Manhattan's prosecuting United Statesattorney, indicted nine suspected Mafia bosses in a federal court. During the trial, one of the suspects, seventy-year-old "Big Paul" Castellano, reputed to be the head of the Gambino crime family in New York, was assassinated by three gunmen.
Drug Use
In the play, Nat and Midge, who get their own highs by smoking some marijuana, also try to help a young woman, Laurie, who has gotten in trouble with a drug dealer known as the Cowboy. She does not have the money that she owes him and he gets very upset. The Cowboy says to Laurie: "Kept your nose filled and your head happy for a year and a half and look what you do." By this reference to Laurie's nose, one can tell that Laurie is a cocaine user. In the 1980s, especially in big cities like New...
Mid 1980s: During the final years of the cold war, several spies are convicted in high profile cases. One such person, Jerry A. Whitworth, is sentenced to 365 years in prison for his role in a Sovi...Mid 1980s: The world experiences a rash of terrorist acts, including hijackings, bombings, kidnappings, and murder. Today: The United States and its allies attempt to destroy terrorist networks aro...Mid 1980s: Crack arrives in the New York area. Ecstasy also becomes popular and is put into widespread use at parties and dances known as raves. Today:Crack is still a problem in many urban areas a...In I'm Not Rappaport, a film by Herb Gardner based on his Tony award winning play, two octogenarians Nat (Walter Matthau) and Midge (Ossie Davis) meet regularly on a park bench in New York's Central Park.
When I’m Not Rappaport embraces what made it a successful play, it’s quite funny, even effervescent. When it adopts sitcom subplots that distract from its simple core, it becomes a droning drama that asks a lot of viewers with its 135-minute runtime.
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Dec 24, 1996 · Play Trailer. Overview. Old Nat Moyer is a talker, a philosopher, and a troublemaker with a fanciful imagination. His companion is Midge Carter, who is half-blind, but still the super of an apartment house. When he is threatened with retirement, Nat battles on his behalf.
