Scapin
I don’t know if this vignette takes place at every performance of Scapin. The script–adapted by playwrights Shelley Berc and Andrei Belgrader and composer Rusty Magee from Moliere’s farce Les fourberies de Scapin–is designed to accommodate the actors’ comic contributions, both planned and spontaneous. This superb show–directed by Christopher Bayes, a theater teacher at Juilliard, Yale, and New York University, and presented in conjunction with Seattle’s Intiman Theatre–shrewdly juxtaposes carefully rehearsed scenes with bursts of improvisation. That should be a drawing card in a city where improv is a hallmark. Scapin is indeed a masterpiece of its form, but audiences looking for a traditional “masterpiece theater” experience won’t find it here. For one thing, the piece was penned in prose, not the elegant rhymed couplets of Moliere’s Misanthrope.
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Finally, however, Scapin is an exuberant exercise in escapism. Adding to the pleasure are a charmingly simple set by Michael Sommers, gorgeous commedia costumes by Elizabeth Caitlin Ward, and musical selections ranging in style from gospel and bluegrass to vaudeville and rap (along with a snippet of “Trouble” from The Music Man for good measure). But like the original theatrical form, this is primarily an actors’ showcase. “Commedia dell’arte” means “comedy of skill,” which Scapin displays at a very high level indeed.
