LA Review: 'The Learned Ladies'

This production of “The Learned Ladies,” featuring Richard Wilbur’s clever rhymed translation, is decidedly traditional, but when it comes to staging Molière, there are competing traditions. For the French, the comedy is usually firmly rooted in reality, and the satire is in dead earnest. In the American tradition, or one of them, the plays are treated in arch, artificial fashion, larded with shtick.

Here director Heather Chesley has chosen the latter approach, using it with skill and elegance, and the opening-night audience couldn’t have been more pleased. From the aggressive mock minuets that set the style to the gorgeous costumes and shoes by Vicki Conrad (shifting the period from the 17th century to the 18th), the wonderfully exaggerated hair and makeup design by Krys Fehervari, and Mark Svastics’ pink-and-white latticework set, the production is a feast for the eyes.

Philamente (Lori Berg) is so high-minded that she fires her maid Martine (Deborah Marlowe) for infelicitous language and lack of grammar. Along with her elder daughter, Armande (Rory Patterson), and her sister-in-law, Belise (Rhonda Kohl), she has turned her household into a bastion of intellectual pretension, in thrall to the pompous, pedantic poets Trissotin (Stephen Van Dorn) and Vadius (Michael Dye). Philamente also rules her husband, Chrysale (William Bower), with an iron hand, dismissing his common sense as vulgarity. Worst of all, she’s intent on marrying her sensible younger daughter, Henriette (Tannis Hanson), to the foppish, fortune-hunting Trissotin, thus launching the plot.

Berg’s Philamente is graceful, stylish, and imperious, while Bower etches a deliciously detailed portrait of Chrysale as a classic henpecked husband, desperately pretending he’s master of his house. Hanson’s Henriette is immune to the follies of those around her and determined to marry Clitandre (Thomas Chavira), the man of her choice. Van Dorn’s bumptious, nimble Trissotin is so vain that he can’t conceive that Henriette could resist his charm. And Marlowe deftly plays three servants, all smarter than their masters. (As an inside joke in the program, the characters are listed in order not of appearance but of intelligence.)

Presented by and at the Actors Co-op, 1760 N. Gower St., Hollywood. May 11–June 17. Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m. (Additional performance Sat., May 19, 2:30 p.m.) (323) 462-8460, ext. 300, or www.ActorsCo-op.org.