Theatre in Review: The School for Lies (Classic Stage Company) Molière, the most irreverent of playwrights, gets a taste of his own medicine in The School for Lies. David Ives has gotten his hands on The Misanthrope, one of the great dark comedies in all dramatic literature, and, boldly reworking the plot and characters to suit himself, has spun a screwball farce that, clothed in the tunics and pannier dresses of the 17th century, makes room for plenty of commentary on contemporary inanities. The result is something like a 17th century Preston Sturges comedy. Thanks to Walter Bobbie's high-style production, a garrulous cast of clowns prove to be equally adept at dazzling verse and physical mayhem. The production piles artifice upon artifice while remaining grounded in contemporary reality. Ives' text is a kind of parody of the Richard Wilbur style of rhymed couplets, which, to most of us, is indistinguishable from Molière's plays. But, as we are informed in a cheeky prologue, the master French playwright is dead, and his play will be made to sing a contemporary tune, with new jokes and several surprising turns of plot. Everyone speaks in a stunningly clever blend of classical diction and modern slang, with rhymes so intricately worked out that Ives' script will be a pleasure to read when published. At the same time, in the hands of this gifted cast, the words - pointed, antic, and occasionally savage -- are always marvelously clear. As in the original, the protagonist, Alceste, scalds everyone around him with his pitilessly honest assessments. "Don't confuse me with the human race," he says, adding, "I have this kink/I'll tell you what I really think." Presented with the work of a would-be poet named Oronte (and renamed "Boronte" by Alceste) - who composes a love sonnet that begins with the immortal lines "Phyllis/You're like some strange bacillus" - Alceste expresses himself so freely that the encounter ends in the filing of a lawsuit. Introduced to Celimine, a witty young widow, Alceste falls hard and fast, but is appalled by her actionable lampoons of everyone in her social circle. As it happens, Celimine is embroiled in a lawsuit, too; she responds to Alceste's overtures because she mistakenly thinks he is royalty and can help suppress her case. Celimine ends up further in the soup thanks to the machinations of her chief frenemy, Arsinoé, a rouged-up, garishly coiffed religious hypocrite who burns with lust and spite. Their just-us-girls dish session devolves into what diplomats call a full and frank exchange of views: Arsinoé: You mock me like some harridan. Celimine: Our natures we can't change/Our hair we can! Enraged by these insults, Arsinoé makes off with a set of incriminating letters written by Celimine, who, in terror of losing her fortune, rushes more quickly into the arms of Alceste. However, Alceste, deceived by Arsinoé into believing Celimine a loose woman, wants only to denounce his former love. Additional complications include a trio of boneheaded suitors for Celimine, a young virgin who suddenly turns into a volcano of passion, an experiment in transvestism that proves awfully handy when someone is needed to impersonate Queen Maria Theresa, and a stupendous running gag involving a servant and several plates of canapés, which leaves the stage littered with Triscuits. The entire cast proves adept at this kind of foolery, but at the heart of The School for Lies is a trio of glittering performances. Hamish Linklater has previously shown off his knack for playing self-important idiots, but his Alceste has a serrated edge that seems entirely new to the actor. There's a new bite to his insults, a new choler in his emotional makeup. He enters clad in black; when someone asks if he is mourning a wife, he tartly replies, "I wear black in mourning for your life." Assessing the friendly manner of an acquaintance, he dismisses him as being "as promiscuous as a bedpan." Yet, caught in the throes of lust, he takes part in an unfettered seduction that places him in any number of undignified positions. At the same time, there's a real vulnerability lurking underneath that allows him to keep a hold on our sympathies. In addition to being a knockout in a period gown, Mamie Gummer's Celimine skates over the verse with such ease that you'd think she speaks in rhymed couplets everyday. Her characterization is a beguiling blend of malice and sprightliness - each withering remark is delivered with the lightest of touches -- but, when the time comes to deliver a verbal slap to a preening hypocrite, you can feel the force from twenty feet away. And underneath all the plotting and the catty dialogue there's a serious woman, still mourning her lost husband; her frivolity is a way of keeping an empty world at bay. A graduate with full honors of the Charles Busch school of farce, Alison Fraser makes a most formidable scourge as Arsinoé. Speaking in a voice like a rusty flute, her over-decorated appearance conflicting brazenly with an air of piety, she is the most transparent of phonies, using her concern for Celimine to make public all of the calumnies that have been uttered against her alleged friend. She fairly explodes with rage and frustration when Celimine turns the tables on her, and she makes the most of a wordless aria - consisting only of cries of anger and triumph - as she steals Celimine's letters. Adding to the atmosphere of barbed merriment are Jenn Gambatese as an innocent young thing who practically rapes Alceste; Rick Holmes as Oronte the poet, complete with an enormous carbuncle on his nose; Hoon Lee as Gambatese's would-be lover, himself the victim of a scurrilous rumor, and Steven Boyer, double cast as a pair of servants, one of whom is the ongoing victim of that canapé gag. John Lee Beatty's setting places the action in an all-white environment - deck, upstage wall, and ceiling, with the minimum of furnishings (including a cupboard and a chandelier). Peter Kaczoworski's lighting adds to the hard, bright atmosphere, and Acme Sound Partners solidly reinforces the spinet music that bridges the scenes. Surprisingly, working in a not-for-profit Off Broadway theatre, William Ivey Long has provided a set of superbly detailed costumes -- satirically exaggerated silhouettes and colors for the men, gorgeous gowns for the women -- that are the equal of anything he has done in a commercial venue. The surprises continue right up to the finale, which contains developments that would leave Molière scratching his head in confusion. Some will be irritated, perhaps even outraged, at what they see as the manhandling of a classic. Then again, perhaps Moliere, a man for whom nothing was sacred, might not mind at all. Certainly the audiences at CSC don't; they're too busy laughing. --David Barbour 
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