Calling all fans of the Bravo cable TV network! Depressed now that the fourth season of Project Runway is over? Can't wait for the return of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List?
Then go and see Greasy Joan & Co.'s new take on Moliere's 17th-century classic The Misanthrope. Oh sure, The Misanthrope may originally be set at the time of King Louis XIV. But Greasy Joan & Co. knows how to modernize this 17th-century comedy so it feels like the next big thing for Bravo TV—even if this comedy in rhyming couplets targets Bravo-loving audiences.
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The Misanthrope. Photo by Michael Brosilow. Playwright: Moliere; Ranjit Bolt, translator . At: Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport. Phone: 312-902-1500; $10-$20. Runs through: April 5
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The comedy concerns Alceste, the embittered title misanthrope who unflinchingly tells it like it is—even if it means alienating friends and powerful people. The problem is that Alceste is head-over-heels in love with Celimene, a gossipy social climber who loves to flirt with fashionable and shallow people.
Give much credit to director Libby Ford and costume designer Lindsey Pate who make the characters like Bravo TV regulars. Casting Kate Cares as a smart and sassy redhead Celimene certainly makes you think of celebrity fault-finding comedian Kathy Griffin. And her foppish admirers all look like Project Runway designers sashaying about in outrageously stylish and loud couture.
It would all be fun and games if it weren't for set designer Kevin Dipinet's decaying drawing room providing a silent commentary on the artificiality of celebrity status and a society that only concerns itself with trivial matters. The look, plus Moliere's wry moralizing calling for a reasoned ( but not extreme ) counter voice in an society overwhelmed by superficiality, helps make The Misanthrope current for today.
If there's one major problem with Greasy Jones & Co.'s production, it's that Celimene's foppish admirers come off as flamboyantly gay without any romantic inclinations for her. This makes Alceste's questioning of Celimene's fidelity to him completely irrational. It also makes Alceste look stupid for not having any working level of 'gaydar.'
But aside from modernized misstep, Greasy Joan & Co.'s Misanthrope is a must-see thanks to its the incisive visual aesthetic and updated approach, plus a slew of strong performances.
Kevin Cox, as the love-struck Alceste, brings to mind a moody John Cusack who knows how to get laughs from his high-and-mighty indignation and comic sulking. Cares spars neatly with Carol Enoch as her manipulatively pious rival, Arsinoe.
Dan Behrendt, Carlo Lorenzo Garcia and Matthew Sherbach are all brilliantly over the top as Celimene's fans, while Kristina Klemetti's Eliante and Alex Goodrich's Philinte are fine voice-of-reason foils.
So even if Greasy Joan & Co.'s Misanthrope could be seen as an attack on the values of Bravo TV, it's enough like the cable channel to make the show fun for its ardent fans.