Moliere made over

‘The Miser’ gets a Tom Cone overhaul in
Vancouver Playhouse Theatre’s production

Barbara Black
THEATRE REVIEW

The Miser, Vancouver Playhouse
Theatre, directed by Larry Lilo. To
Dec. 21.

irst of all, be warned

that this is not

Moliere’s The Miser. It
is, more aptly, Tom Cone’s
appropriation of The Miser.

§f you are familiar with the orig-
inal, you will notice huge chunks
of dialogue missing, replaced by
more ‘‘modern”’ exchanges
which in some cases merely mirror
the old lines or make them more
ridiculous.

Some of Cone’s reworking
works — his emphasis on the dar
side of greed, for instance, which
has Harapagon (Norman Brown-
ing) applying money to his groins
and wounds, desperate for its
healing qualities.

But the overall feeling is that
Cone has taken a play that works
and fiddled around with it to
assure that the (theatrically un-
sophisticated?) audience does not
fall asleep. it’s as if he didn’t trust
the integrity of Moliere’s original.
- This being said, the Conisms are
at times comical.

The opening scene, for instance,
which is a Cone creation.

The curtain comes up ona
wonderfully designed set — a
once-grand ballroom (complete
with hidden compartments)
drooping with neglect. Its smudgy
walls, tattered curtains and
decrepit furniture betray the
miser's disdain for money-wasting
finery.

Enter the servant La Fieche (alias
a buck-toothed fohn Moffat),
broom in hand, chasing after a
huge rat, which he kills with one
whack and displays to the au-
dience with ghoulish relish.

It’s a sort of charming comic
miniature, although it changes the

Photo David Cooper

THE GNARLY miser gets his way in the Vancouver Playhouse
production of The Miser, adapted by Tom Cone. Pictured are
(left) Norman Browning as Harpagon and North Vancouver's John

Moffat as La Fleche.

flavor of the original Moliere in
which the comedy arises inciden-
tally, not self-consciously

As the story goes, Harpagon at-
tempts to force arranged marriages
on his children Cleante and Elise
which will benefit him financially.
Unfortunately, his children are not
thrilled with the propositions and
through a.comic twist of cir-
cumstances eventually get their
own way.

Cone took some characters out
of the original and added a few of
his own. Mariane, Cleante’s love,
actually walks around with her
pallid invalid mother in her arms.

And in a ridiculous appended
scene {in case we didn’t get the
idea of Harpagon’s quest for im-

mortality}, La Fleche becomes a
snake-charmer/mystic who cap-
tures the miser’s money bex oy
distracting him with promises of
ever-lasting life.

The acting in this production is
singularly good, although as
Cleante Frank Zotter was stuck
with a too-silly costume and a
character reduced to the buffoon.

Lespecially enjoyed the perfor-
mances of Shirley Douglas as
Erosine, John Moffat as La Fleche
and Oliver Becker as Valere.
Norman Browning is perversion
incarnate as the skinflint Harpagon
and fuels the action with his char-
acter’s all-consuming manomania.

The Miser continues to Dec. 21.
Cali 873-3311.

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