Terminal Skinflint
By Bill Marx
The Miser
By Moliere
American Repertory Theatre
64 Brattle St.
Cambridge, MA
Box office: (617) 547-8300
In Moliere's tragicomic ode to greed, Steven Epp
plays the miser as a whirling dervish of constipation, a portrait of
terminal skinflintery that, at times, becomes exhausting. The paradox
is representative of the American Repertory Theatre/Theatre de la Jeune
Lune co-production. At times, the evening is too much: too wham-bam,
too obvious, too slow. After all, the farce is the portrait of a man
who gives too little. But it is easy to forgive (or at least tolerate)
the excess because director Dominique Serrand, adaptor David Ball, and
the cast bring so much zesty comic invention to the proceedings, including
Theatre de la Jeune Lune's celebrated flair for physical humor that
extends from absurdist pratfalls to linguistic acrobatics.
Epp's Harpagon manifests greed in all of its
forms, physical and spiritual, a crass entropy that distributes money,
kindness, food, and understanding out of an eyedropper. But the performer
withholds normal generosity with dazzling hysterical energy, roaring
out his disapproval of overfeeding his guests, flicking out his tongue
like an overheated lizard, searching every inch of servants he thinks
are stealing, holding onto his words as if he didn't want to let them
leave his mouth because they are free. Wearing white shmattes, his thin
body often as akimbo as his hair, supplying funny voices and faces worthy
of Jerry Lewis on crack, as nimble as he is mean-spirited, Epp's aging
tightwad is a memorable grotesque, inhuman because he can give away
nothing but misanthropy.
Epp's egomaniacal monomaniac drives the production,
but he gets plenty of amusing support, especially from Ball's rambunctious
adaptation, which peppers the script with references to the ancient
Greek thinker Testicles and hilarious oaths, from "Christ on a bicycle!"
to speculation about what, if anything, wafts out of the puckered ass
of a dead chicken. Occasionally, Ball's playfulness stoops for easy
laughs. Why does Harpagon's reluctant intended, the young Mariane, who
is in love with the miser's son, Cleante, talk as if she has barely
mastered grammar? Still, the script is filled with bursts of refreshing
verbal fisticuffs, the exaggerated language a contrast to the parsimoniousness
of the cheapskate.
Serrand's deliberate, sometimes frustratingly
slow-mo pace gives way on occasion to longueurs, especially when the
physical comedy flags. At the same time, the relaxed rhythms of the
staging presents the cast members, some from Theatre de la Jeune Lune,
others from the ART, with opportunities to embellish their characters
with tidbits of fresh comic detail. Karen MacDonald shows off her impressive
chops as a farceur in the role of the scrappy matchmaker. As the wily
and frenetic Frosine, MacDonald is a worthy foil for Epp in their scenes
together.
Other supporting performers are fine, though
less consistent. Remo Airaldi scores early on as the mumbling servant
who is both the miser's cook and stable master, but, because he depends
on a small number of behavioral tics, he eventually wears out his welcome.
Will LeBow is too old for the part of Valere, who is in love with the
miser's daughter, Elise, but he has moments when his booming voice delivers
the one-liner goods. Sarah Agnew, as Elise, puts some unexpected backbone
into the character's romantic ditziness. Natalie Moore is adequate as
the easily stimulated Marianne.
Riccardo Hernandez's set -- an impressively decayed
and emptied-out mansion, a plastic sheet stretched over a massive hole
in the ceiling -- doesn't overwhelm the performers. It serves as an
aptly decadent frame for the action. Some of Serrand's surreal ideas
are delectable, such as a slot in the bathroom wall for toilet paper
(shred newspaper) to be pushed through, and a novel way for Harpagon
to collect his bath water. Freud equated money and offal; the production
explores this satiric take on materialism with gusto.
This Miser is generally funny and/or
fascinating enough, though it runs out of the steam by the end. Even
Harpagon begins to nod off during the final scenes. And the appearance
of a coffin is a mistake. Perhaps Serrand was driven to underline, yet
again, his vision of the play's tragic undercurrents. Harpagon is not
simply socially isolated; he shrivels into nothingness. Or is it the
director's utopian wish fulfillment? Whatever the reason, Serrand suggests
that the tightfisted monster is heading for the last roundup. Moliere's
conclusion is far more frightening: greed is immortal.