Playwright: Richard Brinsley Sheridan
At: City Lit Th. Co. at Edgewater Presbyterian Church, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.
Phone: (773) 293-3682; $18-$25
Runs through: June 16
Even before we learned what it was called, we knew what a malapropism was. The substitution of an incorrect, but erudite-sounding, word for the correct one is a phenomenon common to all languages in all cultures. The personality giving this ubiquitous pretense its name, however, was the 1775 invention of playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, whose fashionable dowager trilling such drolleries as 'contagious countries', 'an illegible bachelor', and 'the very pineapple of virtue' (respectively, 'contiguous', 'ineligible' and 'pinnacle') forever ensured Mrs. Malaprop's place in the English language.
But one dictionally dysfunctional character does not a successful comedy ensure, and productions of The Rivals too frequently emerge as little more than star vehicles and/or costume parades. City Lit director Page Hearn has obviously seen enough of these to avoid their replication, however. Updating the action from 1775 to 1912 makes for an uncluttered environment allowing for more fast-paced physical humor. It also permits incorporation of such familiar motifs as title-cards (ingeniously affixed to the stage furnishings) to establish locale and several entr'acte sketches featuring a silent squadron of uniformed constables, in the style of the Keystone Cops.
The centerpiece, of course, is the formidable Mrs. Malaprop—played by Martha Adrienne in a clatter of bugle beads, a flying crest of feather plumes and a hail of impeccably enunciated gaucheries (my favorite is, 'an allegory on the banks of the Nile'). But this does not mean that the other actors let down the side in their support. As the incognito Jack Absolute and the romantic Lydia Languish, Brendan Farley and Heidi Gottcent are as charming a pair of lovers-with-agendas as one could want, while Joseph Wycoff's gloomy Faulkland and Melanie Esplin's patient Julia lend a touch of sweetness to offset the potential repugnance of the former's unfounded suspicions of the latter's devotion.
Christian Gray contributes some precision-timed physical comedy as the nerdy Bob Acres, nicely contrasting with Jon Frazier's oily Sir Lucius O'Trigger (flanked by Megan Parr's impish maid, Lucy) and anchored by George Seegebrecht's bombastic Sir Anthony Absolute. Never have five acts (with one intermission) sprinted along as nimbly as in this timeless observation of human folly.
Also see: www.windycitymediagroup.com/theateropenings.html