Hedy Weiss
October 11, 2007
Chicago Sun-Times

Moliere gets high polish
'Miser' gives bygone style a modern bite

It most definitely is not your high school French teacher's Moliere. And that, you might very well agree, is all for the good.

Rather, the zany, brilliantly polished, cagily modernized version of "The Miser" that is now on view at Northlight Theater -- a production that is part slapstick circus, part madhouse, part controlled improv and part fashion show -- is a wonderful amalgam of traditional 17th century style infused with the droll bite of "The Daily Show."

Much of the credit here belongs to adapter-translator James Magruder (a native of the western suburbs who now teaches at Yale), whose crafty, highbrow-meets-lowbrow version of the Moliere original magically locates its hipness in the rapid-fire rhythms of the dialogue rather than a heavy-handed use of contemporary references that inevitably become dated almost overnight.

But there is more than enough applause to go around: for director Mark E. Lococo, who has put an almost choreographic spin on his staging; for his actors, who wrap their tongues around the words with dazzling precision and bite, yet manage to sound completely natural, and for the design team, which has captured an upscale period splendor and mixed it with a sort of Vivienne-Westwood-meets-shabby-chic allure.

Moliere's story revolves around a wildly dysfunctional family -- bourgeois 17th century-style. For the money-crazed patriarch, Harpagon (Gene Weygandt, who seamlessly breaks through the fourth wall at one point, and plays with the audience with the most expertly calculated freedom), there are no limits to avarice and stinginess. Though immensely wealthy, he's psychopathic in his penny-pinching.

And it's not just a matter of ordering food for six when 10 guests are expected for dinner -- an event that triggers a near-maniacal stutter. More crucially, he is wholly willing to ruin his children's long-term happiness by demanding that they marry for wealth rather than for love -- no matter how despicable his choices might be. (Of course he saves the most luscious tidbit for his own marriage.)

Harpagon's grown children, their servants and one very sly matchmaker-of-all-trades (Jacqueline Williams, all but stealing the show with her sassy stratagems) conspire to escape his tyrannical plans in an escalatingly frenzied way. But the more they hatch their plots, the closer he clutches his precious cash box.

Harpagon's daughter, Elise (the always elegantly understated Kate Fry), is to be paired off with a rich old man, though she adores Valere (Timothy Edward Kane, who has a most golden way with words). Valere has shrewdly hired on as her father's servant -- becoming a yes-man in order to win the old man's favor, and undoing himself at every turn.

Meanwhile, Cleante (Lea Coco as a deliciously foppish playboy), Elise's brother, is mad for the impoverished beauty Mariane (Erica Peregrine, whose dumbstruck antics bring the show's first act to a knockout close), while his father thinks he should just marry some rich widow. Easily finessing multiple roles, from knockabout physical clowns to doddering old men, are Dieterich Gray, Patrick Clear, Mark Mysliewiec and Bob Fairbrook.

There is humor aplenty in Tim Morrison's neatly distressed interior (check out the posh chairs whose innards are popping out, or the chandelier with a single bulb). And as for Rachel Anne Healy's costumes, they are museum quality yet gorgeously quirky, with dress fabrics that look like recycled drapes and dandyish suits that easily could find their way onto a Christian Lacroix runway.

This "Miser" is no dreary homework assignment in a theater classic. Instead, it's a smart but giddy playground.

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