The School For Wives, Sept 12, 2012 ***

Written by Moliere, translated by Justin Fleming

Bell Shakespeare

Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne Sep 12-22, 2012

Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ***
Review not published in Herald Sun.  KH

Damien Richardson, Andrew Johnston, John Adam in Bell Shakespeare, The School For Wives. 

Photo Brett Boardman

JUSTIN FLEMING'S TRANSLATION of Moliere’s 17^th century French comedy, The School For Wives, is playful and clever, reinterpreting Moliere’s social satire and rhyming couplets in contemporary language and a range of rhyming forms.

Lee Lewis directs an energetic, versatile cast in a broad, physical style with plenty of slapstick and caricature and set in a 1920s world of flappers and toffy-nosed Brits rather than French fops.

There are plenty of laughs although, sometimes, the direction feels laboured, the characters’ comic delivery overwrought and the pacing is stretched to its limit to over-emphasise a visual gag or verbal gag.

Arnolde (John Adam) believes that his young ward, Agnes (Harriet Dyer), is now the perfect, faithful bride for himself, after she emerges from years of incarceration in a convent where she was raised in total ignorance and innocence at his instruction.

Of course, his plan to avoid marrying a wily, cheating wife goes awry when youthful Horace (Meyne Wyatt) inveigles his way into Agnes’s willing heart.

Adam as the arrogant and rigid Arnolde is marvellously domineering, smug and sanctimonious while the pretty, petite Dyer is perfectly childlike, naïve and vacuous as Agnes.

As Arnolde’s servants, Alexandra Aldrich and Andrew Johnston are a mischievous clown duo, engaging is plenty of physical comedy and Damien Richardson’s opening cameo in the tooting 20s car is a bold and goofy caricature.

Mark Jones’ live piano and quirky percussion underscores the comedy impeccably and lends the production the style of silent movies or the early talkies.

Wyatt has a puppyish energy that works for Horace but lacks some subtlety in his playing of Moliere’s comedy while Jonathan Elsom adds both humour and gravitas in multiple roles.

The production might benefit from some tightening of the intentionally slow pacing of some comic moments but it is a bit of fun that does justice to Moliere's tomfoolery.

By Kate Herbert

BY Molière
TRANSLATED BY Justin Fleming
DIRECTED BY Lee Lewis
DESIGNER Marg Horwell
LIGHTING DESIGNER Niklas Pajanti
COMPOSER / SOUND DESIGNER Kelly Ryall
MOVEMENT DIRECTOR Penny Baron
VOICE COACH Anna McCrossin-Owen
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR John Kachoyan

CAST
John Adam
Alexandra Aldrich
Harriet Dyer
Jonathan Elsom
Andrew Johnston
Mark Jones
Damien Richardson
Meyne Wyatt