James Magruder could have gone two ways in his adaptation of Moliere's "The Miser." He could have turned the play in to a dark study of the destructive power of pathological greed. Or he could have created a lark of a farcical comedy that¹s true to the original, yet deliciously modern in its attitudes. Fortunately, Magruder took the comic path, to the great benefit of audiences who will thoroughly enjoy this hoot of a classic revival at the Northlight Theatre.

The miser of the title is Harpagon, a 60-year old widower with two grown children and an obsession fore money. He's cheap like the Atlantic Ocean is damp. The man is wealthy but he's paranoid about the safety of his cashbox. He's a skinflint who receives the news that two of his carriage horses have died of starvation by ordering that one be taken to the village butcher and the other to his kitchen.

Harpagon's meanness extends to his relationship with his son Cleante and his daughter Elise. He denies them any means of financial independence and decides to marry off Elise to an old man because the senior citizen would take her without a dowry. At the same time, Harpagon announces he will marry young Mariane, who happens to be Cleante's sweetheart. Miserliness is one of the most unattractive and unsympathetic of human vices, and so is a father's tyrannical abuse of his children. That sets up Harpagon as a monster. The audience is invited to laugh at the man though he's really a loathsome figure. But in the first half of "The Miser," Harpagon is such a cartoon villain that it's impossible to take the man seriously, a point of view abetted by the liberal injection of low-comedy physical humor by director Mark Lococo.

The play is a laundry list of Moliere characters, including the domineering and misguided father, two pairs of sweet young lovers (Elise and Harpagon's servant Valere, and Cleante and Mariane), and wisecracking servants. The characters are mostly stereotypes, except for the local matchmaker and all round busybody, a Dolly Levi figure named Frosine. She's the hardheaded and practical one in the play, the fixer upper that the panic stricken Cleante and Elise run to for assistance in their struggles with their unyielding father.

Moliere wrote "The Miser" in prose, which denies modern audiences the pleasure of a rhyming couplet translation that falls so deftly on the ear. But prose permits the characters to speak naturally in 21st century rhythms and idioms instead of the artificiality of verse. Magruder laces his translation with modernisms without separating his version from the original. Indeed, his adaptation follows Moliere's plot closely until the uproarious and freewheeling last scenes, when the plot brings the
narrative to the audience, with houselights on and Harpagon furiously bouncing between the characters in the play and the spectators in the theater as he searches for his missing cashbox.

The final 20 minutes of "The Miser" may be the funniest we will get on an area stage all season. The characters freely talk to the audience, who become the custodians of Harpagon's cashbox. The scene could have collapsed into pratfall inanity but thanks to Lococo and his brilliant ensemble, it's all hilarious and somehow appropriate to Moliere's sensibility.

Early in the production, I thought the show might be in trouble, with all the rear end kicking and slapstick (Harpagon even gets mooned on stage by one of his servants). But the play initially is so two dimensional in its characters and action that it needs a high energy boost until the real comedy takes over halfway through the evening.

Obviously, a company of first rate comic actors is required to bring off Magruder's conception of the play and the Northlight has stocked its casting with some of the best classical actors in Chicagoland. The show would be unthinkable without the bravura performance by Gene Weygandt as Harpagon, frantic in his lust for money but still a pretty cunning adversary. He really takes over the show at the end, displaying the improv skills he honed during his long run in "Shear Madness" years ago.

Kate Fry as Elise and Erica Peregrine are a joy as a pair of sweet young things, Moliere style. They are matched by Lea Coco as the shallow but likable Cleante and Timothy Edward Kane as the shrewd servant with a surprise identity. The scene stealer of the night is Jacqueline Williams as Frosine, the fixer with her own agenda and a ruse or gimmick to save every situation. Her predatory advance toward Harpagon as he revels in his money at the show's end provides the perfect exclamation to the action. The rest of the cast is rounded out in fine style by Patrick Clear, Dieterich Gray, Bob Fairbrook, and Mark Mysliwiec. Designers Tim Morrison (set) and Rachel Anne Healy (costumes) locate the action visually back in Moliere¹s 17th century without giving the production¹s look a museum quality. Diane Fairchild¹s witty lighting and Lindsay Jones¹s sound design are also a big help.

"The Miser" is loaded with absurdities and incongruities, climaxed by a revelation scene at the end of the play that redefines the laws of probability. The play in lesser hands could have been silly and even a little uncomfortable. It could be hard to laugh at a play in which two children openly wish their father dead so they can inherit his money. But the Northlight mix of Magruder's adaptation, Lococo's insightful comic directing, and a cast to die for make the show one of the joys of the young season. And Weygandt can clear a space on his mantle piece for a Jeff best actor award right now.

The show gets a rating of four stars.