The Miser
City Theatre, through Dec. 2
Running Time: 2 hrs, 15 min
With appropriate vocal accompaniment, from between two French doors banked by classical columns, items of clothing, both male and female, fly onto the stage. A shirt, boots, a dress. Shortly afterward, a man and a woman enter, clothed only in their underwear, and proceed to accoutre themselves accordingly.
Welcome to the world of Molière, the man considered the master of comedy in the 17th century. Well, perhaps not the world of Molière but at least the world of this Different Stages production of his play The Miser. While the possibility exists that Molière intended his play to begin this way, most likely that scene is an addition made in this new translation by David Chambers or perhaps suggested by director Karen Sneed. In any case, it’s an entirely appropriate addition for this story about the miser Harpagon, who values money above all else. He wants his son, Cleante, to marry a rich dowager; he wants his daughter, Elise, to marry someone who will take her without a dowry; he and himself wants to marry a woman named Marianne, who is young enough to be his daughter. Problem is, Cleante wants to marry Marianne, as well. Of course, that’s only one of the entanglements in this play packed with entanglements and a deus ex machina to tie up the loose ends.
Molière wrote a stylized type of comedy, and Sneed gives every indication that she recognizes it as such. Using symmetrical staging that falls right in with the lines of Ann Marie Gordon’s symmetrical set, Sneed has her actors utilize a broadly presentational style: standing in straight lines, turning toward the audience, gesturing freely, and declaiming loudly and clearly. If the actors delivered the majority of the text directly to the audience, it wouldn’t surprise me. The style requires great energy and strong voices, and in many cases, the actors carry it off. Particularly impressive is Ousama Itani as Cleante. In the way he walks, stands, gestures, and speaks, he embodies the spoiled rich boy who will sacrifice everything for love. Similarly impressive is Anthony Cortino as Valere, Harpagon’s manly man of a steward, who wants to marry Elise. Craig Kanne gets to have fun in two roles, both of which require him to adapt a broad physicalization, and in one of those roles he appears to be dressed like the mustachioed moneybags character from Monopoly. Simply by observing their dress, you almost always can tell exactly whom someone is, thanks to Kim Ngo’s costume design.
While Sneed’s vision for the play is clear, it’s not always consistently presented. Many of the actors fall in and out of the style, and Molière’s story doesn’t work nearly as well without the support of broad physicalization and great energy. You can deliver material like this as if it’s realistic or something verging on the realistic, but it plays against the text and simply doesn’t work as well. That seemed to be happening often the night I attended, but the rest of the audience had considerably more fun than I did, laughing appropriately and often uproariously, especially in the second act. Hey, it’s Molière. Few have done comedy better.
This article appears in November 30 • 2007.