Fast-paced rhymes and riddles, satire and sexual innuendos will leave you exhausted from laughter. You might want to take your wig off if you have one.
Written by Davis Ives, “School of Lies” is a modern comedic adaption of the French playwright Molière’s play “Le Misanthrop.” The play is directed by Steve Keim in Bas Bleu Theatre‘s production.
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While the setting is 1666 Paris, the play has many nods to the past, including the set, stage and costumes. This aids in the audience getting lost in the quick wit and impish humor, with not a single slip in the tongue-tying language.
An opening monologue is given by Philinte, played by Brett Schreiber, setting the stage with fast-paced chatter and whimsical body language.
The play follows several other characters but no one more crude and blunt than an aristocrat traveler dressed in all black: Frank, played by Jeffrey Bigger. The name seems off for a French man from the 17th century, but I digress. The play begins with Frank getting himself into some trouble with his quick wit and pompous attitude.
Frank then meets his match in Celimene, played by Julia Jones, who has an equally the satiric tongue. Celimene is an intelligent young widow who is involved in a lot of unwanted gossip and scandal — some even coming from the mouth of her closest friend Arsinoe, played by Kelly Foerster, who is very beautiful and desired.
Celimene comes along with three other unwelcome suitors. The first is Clitander, the rich one, played by Miles Horne. The second suitor is Oronte, the “romantic” one, played by Dimitri Balasopoulov. And the third suitor is Acaste, the simple one who comically and anxiously waits for her to choose one of them, played by Kaleb Hacker.
The play follows the trials and tribulations of these characters while getting themselves into some overtly and quite hysterical sexual situations, leaving many of them at odds. An example of this is seen in the relationship between Celimene and her very demure but ultimately very loud and brash cousin Eliante.
The play progressively keeps you on your feet, and I doubt you’d be able to predict the ending. The acting was spectacularly hysterical all around, specifically that of Sashko Conrad, who plays both Dubois and Basque, two contrasting characters with frequent outfit changes.
This production comes at an interesting period of culture when overtly sexist or stereotypical jokes are often frowned upon for good reason. Not to feed into trendy pop culture phrases, but it’s not that deep. I personally viewed such jokes in this play — like how the woman characters fit the trope of being naive, clingy or superficial and the obvious gay jokes that poked fun at the straight male characters — to have added to the ridiculousness and comedy of the play.
This play offered a playful break from reality, in which these tropes and stereotypes aren’t comedy and people live in real fear of being discriminated against, and I don’t think that we should take that lightly; however, I don’t think that this play was meant to completely combat the hypocrisies of society. I do believe that satire can be an excellent use of exposing hypocrisy and preventing further negative stereotypes and tropes. I also believe it would be a disservice to discard the incredible acting in this play because of the satire done — and done well.
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The performance went by surprisingly quickly for a two-hour stint; losing track of time is easy when the persistent humor is so captivating. It will make you question where the time went and make you question if you could also pull off a periwig as well as some of the actors did.
This play is not something you’d want to miss. “School for Lies” runs from now until Oct. 13 with show times 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday nights and 2:30 p.m. Sunday nights.
Reach Jenna Landry at entertainment@collegian.com or on Twitter @CSUCollegian.
