THE MISANTHROPE
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I doubt that Wilbur would approve of Michael Barto’s staging of The Misanthrope. Presented as part of Bailiwick Repertory’s gay- and lesbian-oriented Pride Performance Series, Barto’s Misanthrope maintains, sort of, the original setting of Moliere’s play (17th-century France). But it places the story of a moralistic man’s love for an unfaithful woman in an all-male homosexual context, in which not only Acaste and Clitandre but just about everyone else is more than “flouncingly epicene”–they’re flaming queens.
Barto’s production is spotty. But when it works, it’s quite amusing as an in-group entertainment aimed at gay audiences. Despite the radical change in gender, Barto for the most part follows Wilbur’s advice. Eschewing elaborate theatrical gimmicks in favor of simple stage compositions that emphasize dialogue over action, Barto trusts the text to make its points, wittily and perceptively. And it does.
Kevin Theis’s athletic, farcical Alceste sets the production’s tone of light lampoonery as he grovels before John Braun’s painted, bemused Celimene (though Barto misses a good laugh when he lets this Celimene’s claims to be 20 pass without challenge).
