Uneven MISER at Fell's Point

The production of Molière’s The Miser currently playing at Fell’s Point Corner Theatre concludes with a dance featuring three couples: the youth Cléante and his beloved Mariane; Cléante’s sister, Élise, and her beloved Valère; and Cléante and Élise’s father, Harpagon, and his beloved gray cashbox. As they twirl gracefully around the stage, first Cléante and then Valère gets his hands on the cashbox. For a moment each man falters, his eyes big with greed; then his true love leads him gently back to her arms. The young couples dash off to wedded bliss, leaving Harpagon—at long last—alone with his money.

It’s a wonderful sequence—well conceived by director Barry Feinstein and choreographed by Nancy Flores—and the perfect note on which to end this elaborate comedy of manners. If only the preceding scenes had been directed with as light a touch, the production might have been a triumph from start to finish. Unfortunately, most of the actors begin at such exaggerated states of emotion—grimacing and gesticulating and generally doing lots of shouting—their characters have few remaining places to go. It is not until intermission that everyone seems to take a breath and settle down; the pace varies, and events are allowed to build to the uproarious climax. Consequently, the second act is much funnier than the first.

This is not the worst thing in the world; still, it’s an undeniable shame that one is left wondering how many more laughs might have been mined from Molière’s biting satire. Fortunately, Rodney Bonds is consistently funny as Harpagon, the eponymous “miser,” whose penny-pinching ways and outrageous greed alienate his children and make him the laughingstock of New York. (Feinstein sets the play in Depression-era America, a choice justified by Harpagon’s frequent references to unstable markets and unreliable banks, though perhaps not by Virginia Scott’s translation, which retains the heightened tone and diction of “classical” drama, though Feinstein seems to have given some of the actors—particularly Bonds—substantial freedom to improvise.)

The younger actors turn in more uneven performances. The opening scene between Lindsey Nixon’s Élise and Graham Pilato’s Valère seems to happen at double speed, with a surplus of forced tears and impassioned kisses making it difficult to sort out exactly what is happening. All that is certain is that Valère and Élise, fearing Harpagon’s disapproval, must hide their love for each other.

Alexander Scally’s Cléante has a different problem—in love with the beautiful Mariane, he has no money to woo her properly and so is forced to borrow at exorbitant interest rates. A particularly vicious usurer is unmasked as Harpagon; the scene in which Cléante learns the identity of his creditor should be comic gold, but the information flies at us so fast, and the actors fall to shouting so quickly, the revelation is mostly confusing. More successful—because more assuredly paced—is the scene in which Cléante discovers he has a rival for Mariane’s hand; once again, the villain turns out to be Harpagon.

Things improve with the entrances of Mariane (Megan Therese Rippey) and her confi dante Frosine (Katherine Lyons), an older woman who has secretly agreed to woo Mariane on Harpagon’s behalf. (Payment for her services proves more difficult to collect than she’d imagined.) Both Rippey and Lyons seem much more comfortable inhabiting the heightened space of the play without overwhelming it, and their influence gradually calms the rest of the cast, which includes Frank Vince as a clowning valet, Richard Peck as a disgruntled cook/chauffer, Michael Keating as a tough-talking police sergeant, and Judith Pojda and Nancy Linden as a pair of eavesdropping maids. Daniel Douek steals the final scene as a mustachioed Neapolitan with a secret past.

Set designer Darla Luke and costumers Helenmary Ball and Suzanne Pesa do a nice job creating a world that has fallen into disrepair. (Kevin Heckathorn is credited with set construction.) The centerpiece of Harpagon’s living room is a tattered old couch that is missing a leg, and the walls are smeared with fading purple paint. Harpagon’s servants wear stained uniforms that are frayed where they are not completely torn. Lighting designers Charles Danforth III and Claire Timberlake keep things generally chilly indoors, as though Harpagon were skimping on the heating bill, though for reasons I could not grasp several lighting changes occur midway through scenes.

Considering that I saw the production relatively early in its run, it is possible the actors are still working their way into their roles and that their timing will improve with repetition. Should they raise the quality of the first half to match the second, they’d have a show even a miser would pay to see.

The Miser is playing at Fell’s Point Corner Theatre, located at 251 South Ann Street in Baltimore, on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 PM, and Sundays at 2 PM, through February 14^th. Tickets are $10-$17. For more information, visit http://fpct.org/ or call 410-276-7837.

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