THEATRE REVIEW: THE MISANTHROPE
6 JAN/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Based on the limited exposure Toronto audiences have had to his work — Actors Repertory Company’s lacklustre production of THE CITY and Soulpepper’s electrifying production of THE MAIDS — it seems obvious that British playwright Martin Crimp is more successful at translating and adapting the work of others than he is at building his own plays from the ground up. And that impression is almost certain to be strengthened by the Tarragon Theatre’s new production of THE MISANTHROPE, originally written by the legendary French playwright and satirist Molière, but translated and adapted here by Crimp. THE MISANTHROPE opened Tuesday night on the Tarragon mainstage, under the direction of artistic director Richard Rose.

And while the translation impresses, both in its almost casual use of rhyming couplets and its cleverness, it is in the area of adaptation that Crimp truly seems to shine — at least initially. Where other translators might have been tempted to leave Le Misanthrope in the milieu in which Molière originally set it — the corrupt and venal court of the French King — Crimp packs it all up, bag and baggage, and plunks it down not only in another city (London) but in a wildly different century as well (within a decade or so of the present day).

Of course, some alterations are necessary for the story to take wing in a different place and time. In Crimp’s brave new world order, Alceste, the misanthrope of title, has been transformed into a curmudgeonly British playwright played by Stuart Hughes, while the object of his obsessive affection — the lovely Jennifer, played here by Andrea Runge — is an American movie starlet, famous largely for being famous and very, very beautiful — a task which Runge accomplishes with ease.

Further, with the salons of Paris out of reach, the action is set in the London hotel room Jennifer currently calls home — a nightmare in fuchsia and white by Charlotte Dean that, in its attempt to evoke Versailles in an ultra-modern way, ends up looking more like the ballroom in a Barbie-themed hotel than an upscale luxury suite.

Design notwithstanding, it is headquarters, not merely for the tempestuous affair between the churlish Alceste and the glib and outspoken Jennifer, but for a coterie of hangers-on as well. That would include Alceste’s long-suffering best friend (Patrick Galligan), a journalist working on a Jennifer exposé (Michelle Giroux, demonstrating a real gift for comedy), a foppish theatre critic who can’t handle reviews (David Storch), as well as Jennifer’s former teacher (an edgy Maria Ricossa), and a pair of effete British stage stereotypes, broadly played by Brandon McGibbon and Julian Richings.

All in all, Crimp cleaves pretty close to Molière’s tale — at least in the broad strokes — exploring the casual hypocrisy at play in the everyday lives of the rich and famous and those who might think they are. Along the way, however, he indulges himself in the playwright’s equivalent of Trudeau’s famous pirouette, irrepressibly demonstrating his cleverness in so many ways that eventually the whole thing teeters on the edge of navel gazing. It takes nerve for an adaptor to reference the original once, but in doing it repeatedly, Crimp seems to be merely showing off.

Reviewed here in final preview, this production is saved, but only barely, by Rose’s strong direction and by a cast that tosses off Crimp’s sometimes laboured rhymes with such deceptive ease that it might take you a while to notice them. In the end, it is a production that clearly and a little too cavalierly demonstrates how much fun the playwright and cast are having, without much concern about whether or not the audience is along for the ride.