This is Bell Shakespeare's fifth go-round with Moliere (though only the second to do the grand touring thing - their versions of "Tartuffe", "Le Misanthrope" and "Les Femmes Savantes" (as "The Literati") only played seasons in Sydney or Sydney and Melbourne. All have been done with translation by Justin Fleming and ... I must admit, his translations are starting to pall a little for me - his use of somewhat relentless rhymes (yes, there is a varying rhyme scheme, but still...) has become pretty repetitive, with the gag of chucking in Australian colloquialisms becoming pretty damn stale (yes, I'm aware it's very easy to rhyme stuff with "shut your clacker", the question now becomes "should you"). And all this extra not-particularly-funny gagginess tends to drag what should be a short sharp incisive comedy out to around two and a half hours.
My other problem may be that the last two Molieres were at least directed by the superlative Lee lewis so they had incisive energy and skill applied to them, and this one is directed by Peter Evans instead. Oh, it's very prettily designed, and there's a couple of decent moments here and there, but it's fairly uninspired work. Of the cast of nine there's three performances I'd consider reasonably strong (John Bell has a pretty good grotesque lead performance, Michelle Doake steals scenes where she has anything to do but alas that's pretty much confined to one scene, and Jamie Oxenbould has a goofy charm as an impertinent servant). Otherwise, I must admit I found this fairly lumpen - trying to be "fun" but feeling largely forced.
And the final image is a fairly desperate reaching for poignancy that the production hasn't really earned and, for me, doesn't land.
If Moliere works (and yes, he can work, and potentially even in these clunky translations), it needs to feel fresh, lively and sharp. And this feels dull, clunky and forced. So this was a disappointment.
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