Ain’t That Rich

SoHo Playhouse, New York City

“Like a well-made vodka punch, Kate Robards’ well-made story sneaks up on you. It starts out as a lighthearted account of how she married rich and ends up as a discomforting meditation on the relationship between money and self-image. Particularly now, as we agonize over issues of money and class and race, her story packs an unexpected wallop.”

D.C. Theatre Scene

Robards’s play is a retelling of her disastrous foray into the world of polygamy — a hilarious, heartbreaking saga of duplicitous spouses, sex-positive therapists, underground hookup clubs and a protagonist who can’t help but have second thoughts about it all. There is frank and frequently dirty sex talk, but it’s never played for cheap titillation. You always get the sense that there is a real, reflective woman at the center of things, mostly because she’s standing right in front of you. Robards’s first-person tale tells a remarkably cohesive narrative, with thoughtful, emotional lessons and powerful finale.

Washington Post

 The piece dissects with wry wit and sharp detail the socioeconomic strata of Robards’ native Orange, Texas, “a little, swampy Gulf Coast town on the Texas-Louisiana border.” There, you’re wealthy if you own a funeral home. You might be poor enough to steal from one person, but well off enough that someone even poorer steals from you “Ain’t That Rich details what it was like to go from growing up,“always lying about having more money” to marrying into a family so rich they pretended to have less money than they actually did. . It’s not just a culture clash but a collision of different universes.

San Francisco Chronicle