Charlene Baldridge | Uptown News

This writer went home from the Old Globe’s production of Sir Ronald Harwood’s “Quartet” wishing several things, among them that she were a just a “regular” theatregoer approximately 60 to 65 years of age; that she had never been upon a stage; that it did not pain her so to watch real actors whose median age is 70 perform in a play about old people who have trod the boards in grand opera and are now living in straitened circumstances in a Kent assisted living home for former musicians. The pain is equal to that of watching younger actors act old. “Quartet” is 1999 play that became a 2012 film directed by Dustin Hoffman.

Straitened as their circumstances may be, three once famous opera stars — baritone Wilfred Bond, tenor Reginald Paget and contralto Cecily Robson — have lavishly decorated the sitting room they claim as their own. Now they’re joined by soprano Jean Horton, who shared their glory days and who sang with them on a newly reissued recording of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Rigoletto.”

Giuseppe Verdi’s birthday is just around the corner, and Harwood’s play consists of the three trying to convince the one that they must perform the quartet from “Rigoletto” as the climax of the impending celebration. Many factors complicate the performance of this challenging quartet, including the fact that the pedantic Reggie (Robert Foxworth, the dastardly Duke of Mantua) and the downcast Jean (Elizabeth Franz, Gilda on the recording) were briefly married. She attempts to be civil, to apologize.

“We were different people then,” she says of their nine-hour, unconsummated marriage, which ended in divorce. Reggie, who never got over her, still loves her and so treats her with immense disdain.

Word has it that Wilfred (Roger Forbes, Rigoletto in the quartet) was unfaithful during his marriage of 34 years. He is an absolutely lecherous old coot and begins the play by telling Cecily (Jill Tanner, the slutty Maddelena of the quartet) how luscious her tits are. The truth is that Cecily was more disappointed than round-heeled in her search for love.

Jean cannot believe that her grandiose and glamorous life, which she reportedly abdicated in favor of marriage and motherhood, is ending this way. “I was somebody once,” she says. “I thought I was somebody now,” says Cecily.

Eventually, the original three, who have long outlawed what they call self-pity parties, bring Jean the love, acceptance and affection that she needs in order to move on.

The treacherous script, written by Harwood, now nearing 80, who is responsible for the screenplays of “The Dresser” and “The Pianist” (for which he received an Oscar) among many others, could easily fall into a morass of treacle. Thanks to Old Globe director Richard Seer and the skills of his septuagenarian company, it does not. Some of the actors are more infirm than others physically and vocally. To them, medals of valor, and to the others, sincere affection for holding it all together moment by moment.

Do the four actors truly sing the tricky quartet? Come to the Globe to find out.

Old Globe Associate Artist Ralph Funicello creates the glorious salon; Charlotte Devaux, the costumes; York Kennedy, the lighting; and Christopher R. Walker, the Chopin-infused sound design.