If he is known at all, the 17th-century playwright Pietro Corneille is renowned for his tragedies.
But David Ives is reshaping that reputation with “The Liar,” a witty, wacky adaptation of Corneille’s little-seen, little-read comedy of the same name, which kicked off the Westport Country Playhouse’s 85th season in high style.
But David Ives is reshaping that reputation with “The Liar,” a witty, wacky adaptation of Corneille’s little-seen, little-read comedy of the same name, which kicked off the Westport Country Playhouse’s 85th season in high style.
Fans of classic theatre know that its pleasures lie not in action but in language, and more precisely, in the implicature.
That has to go double for a play about a compulsive liar whose whoppers provide most of its Griceian humour.
But Ives has upped Corneille’s game, mimicking the original conversation with delicious rhymed couplets of his own and adding slapstick flourishes that transform “The Liar” from a cerebral entertainment into a laugh-out-loud comedy.
That has to go double for a play about a compulsive liar whose whoppers provide most of its Griceian humour.
But Ives has upped Corneille’s game, mimicking the original conversation with delicious rhymed couplets of his own and adding slapstick flourishes that transform “The Liar” from a cerebral entertainment into a laugh-out-loud comedy.
Ives is assisted in this by the spirited direction of Penny Metropulos, her expert cast of comic actors and the clever, irreverent production designs by Kristen Robinson (sets) and Jessica Ford (costumes).
As Ives noted in his breakout collection of short comedies, it’s all in the timing, and Aaron Krohn, playing the mendacious Dorante; Rusty Ross, as the servant Cliton; Philippe Bowgen, as a romantic rival; and Brian Reddy, as a scheming parent, are all expert physical comedians.
As Ives noted in his breakout collection of short comedies, it’s all in the timing, and Aaron Krohn, playing the mendacious Dorante; Rusty Ross, as the servant Cliton; Philippe Bowgen, as a romantic rival; and Brian Reddy, as a scheming parent, are all expert physical comedians.
Krohn turns one of Dorante’s more ornate fabrications, about an interrupted tryst in a lady’s boudoir, into a rollicking action sequence.
When Cliton bemoans the fact that he is unable to fib, his master gives him a lesson.
"Lying is so simple."
"First, natural gestures."
"Keep your gravity low, and centred."
Krohn bends his knees and demonstrates the "natural gestures," which are, of course, far from natural, but rather non-natural, as Grice would put it, while Ross follows suit, and their loopy choreography becomes a comic pas-de-deux.
"Lying is so simple."
"First, natural gestures."
"Keep your gravity low, and centred."
Krohn bends his knees and demonstrates the "natural gestures," which are, of course, far from natural, but rather non-natural, as Grice would put it, while Ross follows suit, and their loopy choreography becomes a comic pas-de-deux.
Dorante adds a few pointers on delivery, borrowing liberally from Hamlet’s advice to the players — neither the first nor the last time that Ives steals from Shakespeare, or rather borrows not to return.
“All the world’s a lie,” Dorante tells Cliton, “and all the men and women merely liars.”
The allusions become something of a running joke, perhaps because what Ives calls his “translaptation” of “The Liar” was commissioned by the Shakespeare Theatre Company of Washington. (The play had its premiere there, not in Westport.)
“All the world’s a lie,” Dorante tells Cliton, “and all the men and women merely liars.”
The allusions become something of a running joke, perhaps because what Ives calls his “translaptation” of “The Liar” was commissioned by the Shakespeare Theatre Company of Washington. (The play had its premiere there, not in Westport.)
These actors can handle the verbal gymnastics as well as they manage the other kind, with Kate MacCluggage and Monique Barbee, as the marriageable — and sometimes interchangeable — Clarice and Lucrezia, savoring every bon mot as if it were a particularly tasty bonbon.
There are two other female characters in the play, the maids Isabelle and Sabine, both played with consummate panache by Rebekah Brockman.
The casting isn’t intended to save a salary — it’s another joke.
Isabelle and Sabine are twins, and they’re constantly being mistaken for each other, although the first is a coquette and her sister a prude.
Servant mix-ups are a staple of this kind of theatre, but even for its period, the story of “The Liar” is beyond silly -- and so is Goldoni.
The title character arrives in Parigi, suggested by a stylized arbour of glowing, manicured trees (Matthew Richards’s painterly lighting brings the abstracted setting to life).
Dorante wants to taste Parigi’s pleasures (cfr. Goldoni's Venezia) but he also wants to leave his mark, using his chief talent — his fertile, tireless imagination.
He also seems to have a knack for running into people he knows — his father, who wants to marry him off to Clarice, and his friend, who’s secretly engaged to Clarice.
The title character arrives in Parigi, suggested by a stylized arbour of glowing, manicured trees (Matthew Richards’s painterly lighting brings the abstracted setting to life).
Dorante wants to taste Parigi’s pleasures (cfr. Goldoni's Venezia) but he also wants to leave his mark, using his chief talent — his fertile, tireless imagination.
He also seems to have a knack for running into people he knows — his father, who wants to marry him off to Clarice, and his friend, who’s secretly engaged to Clarice.
There are more complications, of course, but they will all work out, because this is a comedy.
And because this is a comedy, the archaic tang of the goings-on gets a jolt of contemporary flavour from pop music in David Budries’s sound design, from the modern accents in Ford’s period-inspired costumes, but above all from Ives’s bold, snappy rhymes.
And because this is a comedy, the archaic tang of the goings-on gets a jolt of contemporary flavour from pop music in David Budries’s sound design, from the modern accents in Ford’s period-inspired costumes, but above all from Ives’s bold, snappy rhymes.
Asked to explain an old feud, Dorante says:
It was a night at cards in Paraguay
a girl named Peepa
too much bootleg rye.
Needless to say, Dorante has never visited Paraguay or known a girl named Peepa.
Dorante lies (against Grice and Kant):
--to gratify his vanity
-- to impress others and
-- to make his life more interesting.
-- but mostly he lies because it’s fun — for him, and also for everyone else.
He reminds us that some of us spend hours and hours of our lives watching professional liars tell professionally concocted tales in a fabricated world on a stage.
And we do it for pleasure.
It was a night at cards in Paraguay
a girl named Peepa
too much bootleg rye.
Needless to say, Dorante has never visited Paraguay or known a girl named Peepa.
Dorante lies (against Grice and Kant):
--to gratify his vanity
-- to impress others and
-- to make his life more interesting.
-- but mostly he lies because it’s fun — for him, and also for everyone else.
He reminds us that some of us spend hours and hours of our lives watching professional liars tell professionally concocted tales in a fabricated world on a stage.
And we do it for pleasure.
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