In addition to providing the cold welcome so typical of the Comedie Francaise in recent years, its Studio-Theatre does not reserve seats but instead sells its tickets on site, first-come, first-served, one hour before each performance. Since playtime is usually Wednesday through Sunday at 6:30 PM, drinks and snacks available in the bar become a real attraction. Even nicer is a current exhibit there of action-anatomical drawings and colorful, nature-themed geometric paintings by Didier Courtial. He sometimes greets visitors, and I had the good fortune to enjoy his cordiality as well as his art, which is on sale in the Studio-Theatre Bookshop-Boutique on the ground floor. (If you miss him or his exhibit, you can catch up at the studio of Didier Courtial, 39, rue Baron le Roy, Paris 75012; or phone 01 40 19 04 89 to make sure of visiting hours. He speaks English.) The C-F's public relations department would benefit from studying M. Courtial's friendly good manners -- and in a way, it did, since he recommended Sganarelle ou le Cocu imaginaire as "good and funny."
Courtial was right. Sganarelle is a short, minor Moliere work in which he introduced that egotistical yet naive bourgeois. Near to his commedia origins, Sganarelle gets his name from the Italian verb "sgannare," used in poetry and meaning "to undeceive." In this play, as in two that followed, he's the hero who has to have his eyes opened to reality. It's wonderfully metaphorical, then, to alternate action between a down-center thrust (especially good for imparting confidential information and characters' feelings to the audience) and on the proscenium with various configurations of curtains unfolding or swishing to close scenes.
As for the plot, the subtitle pretty much reveals the point. Isabelle Gardien is furiously funny as her husband's suspect, though she forever seems to be wrapped around or on top of him. Nimble Sylvia Berge gets a workout as her wily servant. Handsome Christian Gonon and Julie Sicard, pale as a ghost in white chiffon, are the lovers against Sganarelle's will who ignite his suspicions. A hollowed-out book, letters, a locket, a suitcase get bandied about as Sganarelle seeks to prove the truth of his suspicions. Before the finale, there's a sword -- or, more accurately, slapstick -- fight between the lover and Sganarelle. Like a knight in too-heavy armour, he ends slapping his own face. It takes Lelie's servant, done up to look like his father in a wheelchair that almost tumbles off stage, to secure Sganarelle's cooperation and end with comedy's traditional promise of a marriage. Even so, silly, jealous, skeptical, gullible Sganarelle has to have the final words, expressing his frustrations as the curtain closes behind him.
