"Over the top," said my companion as well as those we heard in the lobby afterward. No surprise: comic cartoon figures cover the proscenium arch. The curtain opens on a parlor askew, like a technicolor "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" encasing hypochondriac Argan (Douglas Jones, worthy of Moliere). Before his own cabinet full of potions and devices, he analyzes his farts and jollies over the possibility of ending voluminous medical bills by having an in-house doctor. Free. Argan just needs to wed daughter Angelique (sweet but spunky Elizabeth Ahrens) to about-to-be medico Claude (David Yearta). Complication: she's already in mutual love with Cleante (winsome Randolph Paulsen). Furthermore, her whorish, covetous stepmother Beline (Kris Danford, always announced by thunder) wants her off to a convent, without claim to her father's wealth. It will take wily servant Toinette (Carolyn Michel, well up to all tasks) to help discredit Beline, to win Argan over to true Angelique and her lover, and finally to disaffect Argan from medical quacks with their dubious medicines, methods and mumbo jumbo.
Intrigues and comic turns, not the least of which emulates a Gilbert and Sullivan piece, come fast and satirically furious.
Publicity heaped on Eduardo Sicangco's lavish costumes, blending period and stock theatrical with modern styles, is fully justified. Most hilarious, feathery Yearta could be a beast fabliaux or Fontaine character with the demeanor of Burt Lahr's Cowardly Lion.
Always under-and-overdressed, Kris Danford's Beline is a cross between a can-can dancer and Madeline Kahn's "Blazing Saddles" saloon seductress. James Clarke's stuffy Doctor Purgeon looks as puritanical as Malvolio, in contrast to Brent Bateman's bloated notary. (Moliere spares the legal no less than the medical profession.) Michel, Harlequinesque at first, later makes a super medico-Groucho. Pretty-in-period-pink Ahrens yet fits into Angelique's shoes as a bobby soxer, apt when Cleante, posing as her music instructor, proposes via an operatic pastoral. As an apothecary, DeMario McGrew's green outfit matches the goop he delivers to Argan.
This is not Director Greg Leaming's first fun with French farce for Asolo, but it's his best. Love shows through his irreverent handling of Moliere's classic comedy, to both of which Constance Congdon gives credence in her adaptation. They're so blessed with a talented, in-sync tech staff. Over the top with them all we can go! And should.
