If you have seen one of David Ives’s three previous riffs on classical French comedy — The School for Lies after Moliere, The Heir Apparent after Regnard and The Liar after Corneille — you will know exactly what to expect from this latest “translaptation” (what he calls his translated adaptations). A featherweight plot is sustained by the cleverness of Ives’s rhymed and often amusingly anachronistic couplets, artfully delivered by a talented cast in a stylish production. That’s what Ives again delivers, but this time out it does not seem quite as effortless. Ives had to dig deep to find his source, an obscure 1738 play by a virtually forgotten author, Alexis Piron. Based on actual events, it relates how a scorned Parisian poet got back at the literati by assuming the persona of a Breton shepherdess whose poetry charmed them all including Voltaire. In Ives’s version, the multiple impersonations and mistaken identifies are so complicated that even the actors get confused. The humor is a bit broader and the quality of the rhymes is a bit lower. The delightful cast includes holdovers from previous Ives plays — Christian Conn, Adam LeFevre and Amelia Pedlow — in addition to Noah Averbach-Katz, Adam Green (The Witch of Edmonton), Peter Kybart (Awake and Sing) and Dina Thomas (Tribes). Alas, Carlson Elrod, whose previous Ives performances added so much fun, is absent this time. Murell Horton is back with more wonderful costumes and Michael Kahn again directs with flair. The set design by James Noone (Sunset Boulevard) is also excellent. If you have not seen one of the earlier plays, you will probably be delighted; if you have, you might be a bit disappointed. Ives has apparently moved his New York base from Classic Stage Company to Red Bull Theater. CSC”s loss is a win for Red Bull. Running time: one hour 50 minutes including intermission.
Links to reviews of earlier Ives plays:
The School for Lies https://bobs-theater-blog.blogspot.com/2011/05/school-for-lies.html
The Heir Apparent https://bobs-theater-blog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-heir-apparent.html
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