Word: argan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Moliere's play concerns a hypochondriac, Argan, who wants his daughter Angelique to marry a doctor, though she meanwhile has fallen in love with a musician. At the same time, Argan's wife schemes to get his fortune, and his brother tries to cure him of his hypochondria...
...when it lacks the sparkle Richard Wilbur's verse translation has given other Moliere plays). It calls, not just for good actors, but for expert farceurs. The cast at the Loeb is very earnest and energetic, but rarely brings the play to life. The two leads, Ralph Martin as Argan and Melissa Mueller as his saucy, scheming maid Toinette, mug and ham it up endlessly, but it just doesn't make us laugh...
What Liz Coe decided to do in this situation evidently, was to throw sense and consistency to the winds. At the beginning of each act, characters come out and sing clever rock parodies, using Moliere's lyrics and music by Michael Gury, Ed Zwick, and Mark Hunter. Argan adds up his medical bills on an old-fashioned adding machine (meanwhile writing down the totals with a quill pen). Toinette makes her first appearance on roller skates, and after a while takes them off and goes through the rest of the play in shoes. The daughter's lover, Cleante, comes...
...Allen, on the other hand, is delightful as the maid Toinette who brings about the final happy conclusion. In front of Argan's weakness, her insouciance and her defiance of the father's pomposity are refreshing. Over and over Argan calls her "a slut." In essence she is, and an enchanting...
...minor roles, Jane Jackson as Argan's sinister wife and David Richardson, as the hopelessly inept Thomas Diafoirus, stand out. But many of the others don't quite know what to do with their roles. Jan Gough, as Angelique, is like a starry-eyed, dim-witted girl from Vassar. Burton Gaige, her lover, who wears a brown jacket, enormous gold pantaloons, and a long curly blond wig, looks more like the Cowardly Lion than Achilles. And Mike Kapetan, as Beralde, who should be the raisonneur of the play, is for some reason dressed in bright purple...