| Monsieur Jourdain (left, performed by Pat Mahood) thinks grand ideas as the Master of Philosophy (right, performed by Bob Walter), enlightens him on spelling. (Photos: Enoch Wu/Sentinel-Tribune) |
The Lionface troupe proves with its production of Moliere’s "Bourgeois Gentleman" that
340-year-old comedy can be funnier than anything a viewer will find tonight on TV.
The young troupe is staging the classic French comedy tonight and Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
in Bowling Green’s City Park, near Needle Hall, which is unavailable because of renovations.
Directed by Hannah Halfhill, the play remains true to the satirical farce of the original while
incorporating fresh touches, including the comically anachronistic use of pop songs sung with all the
vigor of an "American Idol" hopeful by Katie Grilliot.
The audience is invited to sing along, and even jaw back at the cast.
Everybody will be hooting at our poor title character Monsieur Jourdain, a merchant who has delusions of
consorting with royalty and becoming a true gentleman himself. While that set up – and there’s little
more to the plot than that – may seem freighted with antique social mores, the broadly drawn characters
and buffoonish antics blow away any mustiness.
For one, Pat Mahood as Jourdain, is full of bluff certainty, with his every self-assured declaration
showing what a buffoon he is. Even as he strives to be refined he displays his pedestrian sensibility.
After years enlivening productions in character and comic roles, Mahood takes center stage and makes the
most of the part.
As part of his program for self-improvement Jourdain has engaged a series of tutors. As the music master
(Scarlet Frishman) and dance master (Skylar Frishman) make clear: They’re only in it for the money,
though the dance master frets more about her art and the scruples of the arrangement.
Jourdain doesn’t help matters much, when he reacts to the dance she choreographed by saying: "You
hop around quite well."
Jourdain also engages a fencing master (Zach Navarre) who is as full of bluster, and as much a fake as
Jourdain himself.
And then in a coup to grace the philosophy master arrives in the form of pint-size Bob Walters, all
decked out in a cap and gown.
Walters has the script’s most complicated lines, stuffed as they are with philosophical jabber. He
articulates with a seriousness that’s hilarious all on its own.
A discourse on the difference between verse and prose has Jourdain proclaiming: "For years I’ve been
speaking prose and I never knew it!"
| Monsieur Jourdain (right, performed by Pat Mahood) imagines his life as a gentleman as his wife Madame Jourdain (left, performed by Laura Crawford) thinks otherwise. |
The culmination of all Jourdain’s pretensions would be to marry Dorimene, a royal widow (Amanda Larsen).
In this he is seemingly aided by the count Dorante, who flatters Jourdain and borrows significant amounts
of money that he invests in his own designs on the widow.
One obstacle to Jourdain’s amorous aspirations is, his own wife the long-suffering Madame Jourdain is
played by Laura Crawford. Her facial expressions as Jourdain details how much money he had loaned to
Dorante say as much as a fistful of witticisms.
She and the maid Nicole (Kat Albert) are open in their disdain for Jourdain’s airs. Nicole laughs at her
master, and disparages all his masters and "royal" friends who do nothing but make noise and
mess up the house she has to clean.
Jourdain also wants to marry his lovely daughter Lucile (Amber Bodi) off to a royal. She wants only to
marry her fellow bourgeois Cleonte (Rick Bush), a plan Nicole supports because then she can marry
Cleonte’s servant Covielle (Ryan Halfhill).
Halfhill and Bush make for a great comic pair. Cleonte is full of lofty romance and Covielle is full of
earthy lust, reciprocated by the saucy Nicole.
All this comes to a head with an elaborate scam involving faux Turks and has Halfhill and Bush
improvising in jibberish.
The final pageant involving the entire cast, which also includes Justin Campbell and Katie Partlow,
brings the mockery of Jourdain to a climax.
All ends well for the lovers, though Larsen’s lovely Dorimene seems not to deserve being married to the
mendacious scamp Dorante. Those venturing to City Park will be repaid in laughter.
