Playwright: adapted by David Ives from the play by Molière. At: Chicago Shakespeare Theatre at Navy Pier, 800 E. Grand Ave. Tickets: 312-595-5600; www.chicagoshakes.com; $48-$78. Runs through: Jan. 20
There are three ways you can get away with saying ribald, vulgar, potty-mouth things in polite company, and that is to say them: 1) in Latin, 2) in French or 3) in verse. David Ives says them all of these ways in his adaptation of Molière's The Misanthrope, which also scrambles Shakespeare, Chekhov, Keats, several American cities and a transvestite-ex-machina into his ostensibly 18th-century milieu.
Classics scholars will recognize little of the Molière original beyond its premise in the production currently occupying the Chicago Shakespeare mainstage. Yes, we have a protagonistappropriately named "Frank"who insists on speaking only the unvarnished truth, and yes, he is surrounded by frivolous socialites who delight in gossip, hypocrisy and slander. What sets the plot in motion, however, is his spurious claimintended to illustrate the evils of idle rumorthat his best friend, Philinte, is a cross-dresser. His buddy responds with not one, but two fibstelling Frank that flirtatious widow Celimene adores his grouchiness, and informing that same lady that Frank is a well-connected aristocrat. What could go wrong?
What could easily go wrong with this brand of screwball comedy is for the road-runner pace to flag or the artificial dialogue lose its flow. The delights of heroic couplets rhyming "dump" "trump" and "sump-pump," or alliterations like "blue-footed boobies on a bay of bliss" wear thin when contemplated at excessive length, as do such anachronisms as "LOL" and "dude" delivered in iambic pentameter and the humor of a character called "Clitander" being addressed as "Clitoris." (On the other hand, the trials of a servant passing canapés to increasingly agitated guests never ceases to pull laughs.)
Fortunately, director Barbara Gaines and movement consultant Rick Sordelet have drilled their acting ensemble so that they scamper through their slapstick hijinks with the agility and grace of Olympic gymnasts, even while swathed in several pounds of Susan E. Mickey's quivering fringes and ribbons in popsicle colors. Daniel Ostling's scenic design allows plenty of room for athletic antics (did I mention Celimene's mocking impressions of wannabe hip-hoppers and Valley girls?), its dominating motif a massive chandelier that, contrary to our Phantom-fueled expectations, does not fall on our heads.
Academics may grumble at the liberties Ives takes in the configuration of his madcap text, but the fun he obviously had writing it cannot help but infect those viewing it as well.