The most demading role in the comic reportory? : School for Wives

We're really lucky to have nearby, in Warren, R.I., the amazing 2nd Story Theatre, where director Ed Shea puts on one terrific production after another, and last night we go to see the best one I've seen there yet, Moliere's "School for Wives," starring Shea himself and he really does steal the show, as well as serving as an inspiration to the many young (and not so young) actors in his troupe - a demonstration of all that can be done in a comedy. His role, Arnaud, has to be one of the most demanding in the repertory - not only a tremendous amount of material to learn, but all of it in rhymed couplets and all of it requiring pinpoint execution to keep the comic pace moving fast. Shea didn't miss a beat last night, and his inspiration I think brought the rest of the cast up to a higher level, with particular kudos to Tom Roberts, who not only played his part well but did an amusing prologue in verse that he wrote himself. The play is a curiosity, of course, dated, sexist, but still strangely contemporary - as the sexist old man who wants a pliable wife loses out in the end and the young couple - to nobody's surprise - end up in each other's arms. As is typical of the genre, the old many storms off the stage before the wedding - Shakespeare of course broke with this comic convention and often left the old man alone on stage till the end (e.g., Antonio), for an added S'ean touch of pathos and wistfulness. Moliere far more traditional, a play with a comic plot well engineered as a Swiss watch and with the pleasure in the witty versification (Wilbur's translation is incredible) and, in this production, Shea's slightly Brooklyn-tough-guy version of the old French fool, Arnaud.