A school for verse

Jennifer K Mahal

“All the world found ‘The School for Wives’ wicked, and all the world

ran to see it.”

-- Donneau de Vise, commenting on Moliere’s play in 1663

From its first appearance, it caused outrage, broke box-office records

and created a war of words. More than 300 years and many translations

later, Moliere’s “The School for Wives” is no less scandalous.

But director David Chambers is hoping that audiences will find the

production at South Coast Repertory, which opened Friday, still makes

them laugh.

Moliere is “able to turn on a dime from terribly humane moments -- ‘to

lose the one you adore is dreadful’ -- and two seconds later leave an

audience rolling in the aisles,” Chambers said.

Done in verse with elements of farce and satire, “The School for

Wives” is the story of Arnolphe, a man so determined that the woman he

marries won’t cuckold -- cheat on -- him that he goes to extremes.

Arnolphe, played by Dakin Matthews, has his wife-to-be, Agnes, raised

from age 4 to be a complete innocent, meek, obedient and ignorant of the

outside world.

His plans go awry when Horace, the son of a friend, sees Agnes, played

by Emily Bergl, and falls in love. A love he shares with the obsessive

Arnolphe in confidence. Wackiness ensues.

“The central thrust to the piece is how the character [Arnolphe] falls

victim to his own folly,” said Daniel Blinkoff, who plays Horace. “That,

I think, is very human.”

This is the fourth Moliere play for Chambers, who has also directed

“The Misanthrope,” “The Miser” and “Tartuffe” for SCR.

“I, being on a Moliere path, thought it was important to go back from

‘Tartuffe” and ‘Misanthrope’ to this play,” he said.

“The School for Wives” secured Moliere’s place in French theater when

it was first performed in December 1662, playing to packed houses in

Paris. Criticisms of it abounded, enough so that Moliere felt he had to

respond with a short play titled “The Critique of the School for Wives.”

The response garnered a response and the words flew.

“Moliere had kind of an out-sized ego to match an out-sized talent,”

Chambers said. “The American equivalent might be Orson Welles or Andy

Warhol.”

The genius of the playwright, Chambers said, in part lies in the way

he takes things to extremes, allowing us to laugh at things that are, on

the surface, simply not funny.

“I think really what the play is, is a detailed examination of the

male psyche in obsessive love,” Chambers said. “I think it would be hard

to find an honest contemporary male who hasn’t felt what Arnolphe felt in

one way or another.”

Bergl, who plays the ingenue Agnes, said that she has noticed that the

play gets a reaction that’s almost palpable from the audience.

“I think that the outright misogyny would be dated,” she said, “but it

isn’t when you feel the reaction of the audience.”

When asked why, Bergl pointed to the subject matter.

“I think [the fear of adultery] is still rampant in our society,” she

said. “If it didn’t exist, people wouldn’t find it so horrifying or

amusing.”

The actress, who is making her SCR debut, said that she was scared to

tackle the rhyming, versed text of Ranjit Bolt’s translation before

rehearsals started.

“I think that this translation is so actor-friendly and un-metrical

that I stopped worrying about it after a while,” Bergl said. “I realized

I was in good hands with David, and watching other actors tackle it. I

was in a school for verse.”

Although he used Richard Wilbur’s translations for “Tartuffe” and “The

Misanthrope,” Chambers said he found Wilbur’s “School For Wives” to be

“rather leaden.”

“It was hypermetrical and hyper-rhymed,” Chambers said. “Wilbur’s

translation is overdone. It feels like old costumes.”

He read Bolt’s 1997 translation and liked the “nimble and rather

liquid” verse, but was put off by the number of British-isms.

While working on his own translation, Chambers found himself wandering

back to Bolt’s version. Rereading it, he realized that he liked it a lot.

Chambers made arrangements with Bolt to work together and change the

British terms into American.

Though they’ve never met and never talked on the phone, the two have

been exchanging e-mail regularly.

“He’s very sweet and has been wonderful in terms of rewriting segments

during rehearsal,” Chambers said.

Both Bergl and Blinkoff, who was last seen in SCR’s “Nostalgia,” share

a similarly high opinion of Chambers.

“Through David’s unbridled enthusiasm and passion for the theater, he

has created a space where Moliere’s ‘fantastic’ world can come alive,”

Blinkoff said in an e-mail.

Bergl agreed.

“It is really invigorating and inspiring to work with a group of

people, whether they’re backstage, in the house or onstage, to bring a

classic work to life,” Bergl said. “I don’t think anyone in this building

is doing it for the money.”

When asked what he will take away from his experience in “The School

for Wives,” Blinkoff wrote: “The best comedies, I think, are based in

truly human terms. This is one of those plays. And when you have a

director like this, a set like ours, a lighting and sound design like

this willing to support the action of the play, a cast like this. . . it

becomes magical. The world comes alive, the work comes alive, and it’s

one of those special times that one remembers why one loves the theater

so much.”

FYI

* What: “The School for Wives”

* Where: South Coast Repertory’s Mainstage, 655 Town Center Drive,

Costa Mesa

* When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday and

2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday until Feb. 10.

* Cost: $19-$52

* Call: (714) 708-5555