THE SCHOOL FOR LIES

Anyone have any information about The School for Lies? Really curious about it....wondering what the buzz is?
Anyone else looking forward to seeing it?

dying to know what you think..report back after you see it tomorrow.

Updated On: 4/15/11 at 09:09 PM

anyone?

The only heartening thought to come out of this woeful farrago is the knowledge that Molière will survive this travesty of his greatest play. It's childish, stupid, labored, crass, and completely unfunny. The author mixes anachronisms, profanity, and enough fancy words to fill several years worth of new word a day calendars. The result is both noxious and obnoxious. The level of the "wit" is to have the character Clitandre called "Clitoris"--- several times. And since the word "scrotum" seems to occasion such hilarity in a critics' darling musical, why not use it here as well? There's a reference to Darien, Connecticut, a character says "my bad," etc., etc..... David Ives: your bad.


What makes matters worse, each line of this doggerel is delivered as heavily as a hammer on an anvil, each one practically screeching self-satisfaction at its own "cleverness."

The direction is as heavy-handed as the writing. Actors who have done good work in the past struggle with the mess here.

Instead of adapting The Misanthrope, why not just do it the way Molière wrote it? I know, i know... what a preposterous notion.

I fell somewhere between After Eight and lightguy. I didn't think it was painful, but didn't think it was particularly good either. The script was what it was. I actually didn't mind some of the updating, although I admit I was laughing/cringing at the absurdities, rather than laughing with it.

My biggest problem was with Mamie Gummer. I thought she was excellent in Uncle Vanya there a few seasons ago, but here she didn't seem to fit with the spirit of the text. Her delivery was slow and plodding.

Alison was probably my favorite, even though she felt like she was in a different play as she was so over the top. Maybe Walter Bobbie needs to get in there and even out the performances a bit.

I definitely disagree that this is the best thing at classic stage in years. Did you miss Three Sisters, Venus in Fur and Uncle Vanya?

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After Eight-
Yeah I guess her "cool, ironic detachment," as you so perfectly put it seemed at odds with the crass nature of the adaptation, and more importantly to me with the interpretations of the other actors. I like Gummer in general, and I didn't think she gave an embarrassing performance. It just didn't gel with what everyone else was doing.

William Ivey Long designed marvelous costumes here. I actually found myself admiring them in detail when my mind wasn't wholly focused on the play.

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I am somewhat in the middle of these reviews... that being said, I plan to go back and see the play again!

I was definitely with the audience - that enjoyed the play from beginning to end! I found it a fully realized elaboration on Moliere's work - that actually worked out better in the way the author fleshed out the relationship between Célimène and "Frank" (Moliere just drops us into some relationship and never establishes WHY these two are together???)

And, while I understand the objections to updating Moliere... honestly, I have NEVER seen a Moliere done in English that I liked... while I enjoyed the play done in French (and I don't even speak French!) It's like seeing Shakespeare in German (which I do speak) you get the gist of the story but you miss the poetry... the language that makes Shakespeare "Shakespeare" (and not Ben Jonson) - I feel the same is true for Moliere.

And, while I too did cringe at the scatological references here and there, now and then... I'm a bit of a prude when it comes to language and most people are NOT - so the choice of words was not out of place for a New York audience. What's more important is that the author DID make the commitment to write a two hour play in iambic pentameter with occasional rhymed couplets... BRAVO!!! And the language IS inventive, clever, bold, fresh, funny and occasionally "pretty" (if never "beautiful")

I say this play is a Can't Miss IF you enjoy theater and are not stuck in the "classics" (because, let's be frank, like Frank... Shakespeare and Moliere did a good deal of skullduggery in their works and a LOT of what they wrote is really un-intelligible for a contemporary audience... in fact, being working showman, I would hazard to guess that both great playwrights might well have revised their plays along these lines to make sure their audiences were well entertained for the evening!)

g

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excuse me, Mr. Snarky Pants
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He was formulating his own opinion. I dont imagine he thinks David Ives is BETTER than Moliere, but he feels that Ives has flushed out Moliere's ideas more, and clearly defined the relationship between Frank and Celimene.

Thus far, only YOU think its a butchering...

Georady, Whizzer, Tom, Josias and I all seemed to quite enjoy it. You seem quite outnumbered, Mr. Theatre God himself.

So thank you for posting your opinion, and i look forward to others posting theirs. But when theirs are different than yours, you should remain in your corner of the sandbox.


"one word to think of colon) turd"

Updated On: 4/24/11 at 03:55 AM

To wit' I think that Richard Wiblue did the yo-man's job translating French to English and TRYING to keep faithful to the ideas and style of French couplets... problem is that French is a MUCH easier language to rhyme - in - and that puts forth a challenge that takes the writer away from the demands of simply telling the story... how many words in English rhyme with the most required word in English: "love" - uh, dove, glove, thereof???

Face it, even the Restoratioon writers - who were more influenced by Moliere than Shakespeare - chose to drop to iiambie pentameter and rhymed couplets for all but their tragedies (little wonder that only the comedies survive as viable theatrical works.)

So - we are left with a literal translation of French w/o the sound and joy of that language (not to mention long diatribes against religion against a monoarchial threat of censorpship and are inconprehensible to our contemporary secualer society... and often cut) as I saw in a recent production of "Tartuff"

Or, a fully realized ressurection of Moliere's work, taking his key characters and basic premise (the excess of virtue can be as funny as the excess of foppery) and go wild with it! Bottomline, even people with NO background in theatre, let alone "classical" theater found it greatly amusing (judging by their rush to check for iphone messages at the intermission...) while a contingent of French Class students were laughing their collective "asses" off... I had to ask if they thought it was "like" Moliere and they agreed it was a very different play... and they all loved it!

Again, give some props to the great writers who wrote the works these great works of the past...

Did Moliere literarly translate Molina's "Don Juan" into to French? Did Shakespeare merely translate Platus from Latin into "Comedy Errors" (or did the Bard add a couple more twins?)

Kudos to Ives! Great Play! Love the theatre of Language!

g

"You can respect and love the original Moliere AND think that Ives has created an interesting theatre piece in and of itself. "

That is true. The problem here is even if this play were wholly of David Ives's invention, and had no connection to Molière whatsoever, the play, in and of itself, is dreadful.

"No such luck for us non-contemporaries. So why not create a little backstory (and a little more) to better establish WHY would this Virtuously Intolerant Man, set aside all his beliefs for this... one... girl??? "

Have you read Pascal, a contemporary of Molière? He wrote, "the heart has its reasons that reason knows not."

No further explanation is necessary. A 17th-century French audience understood this, and so does a 21st-century American one.

"But for everyone else's sake, stop shoving your opinion down our f*cking throats.

you've criticized everyone elses opinion, to a degree that makes me wonder if you are just bitter that Hamish Linklater got the role of Frank over you.."

Hardly. He's a much better actor than I am.

And if you don't want my opinion shoved down your -------- throat, then don't respond to the points I've raised, don't bait me, and don't curse at me. Because one little lesson you should have learned in the sandbox, if you can't take a punch don't throw one.

Now i've said my piece, and if I choose to leave, then it will be by my own volition, not anyone else's, and certainly not yours.