Theatre in Review: The Metromaniacs (Red Bull Theater/The Duke on 42nd Street)

	Christian Conn, Noah Averbach-Katz, Amelia Pedlow. Photo: Carol Rosegg

The love of literature drives people to all sorts of mad excesses in David Ives' latest romp through Enlightenment-era France. The playwright, who loves to root around in the lesser-known corners of French dramatic literature, reworks a farce, by the eighteenth-century dramatist Alexis Piron, about poets, playwrights, and their mixed-up amours. As he has done in such semi-adaptations as The Liar and The Heir Apparent, Ives writes in rhymed couplets, employing a then-and-now style that yokes references Voltaire would recognize to gag lines right out of today's newsfeed. As an example, early on, the frustrated writer Francalou, in whose house these frantic wooings take place, confides in Lisette, his daughter's maid, saying, "Now keep this mum. No idle scuttlebutt." "Monsieur," she replies, "these two lips are epoxied shut."

Francalou's green-and-gold ballroom -- a sumptuous creation by set designer James Noone -- is decorated with flats depicting "an artificial sylvan wood" because he is about to present a play to his guests. However, plenty of dramatics are already in the works. Francalou, whose career as a writer has not been crowned with success, has begun penning poems under the nom de plume Meriadec de Peauduncqville (say it out loud to get the full effect), who is, allegedly, a Breton farm maid with a gift for meter and rhyme. Of these ghostwritten efforts, he adds, "And it's all garbage! Tripe! Is it not sad/Some Breton cretin could become a fad?"

Meanwhile, Damis, a young poet, is madly in love with Meriadec, who, of course, no one has ever seen. Mondor, his skeptical manservant, cautions, "Yeah, what if she's a dog? She send a photo?" "Great poetesses don't look like Quasimodo," Damis replies. Damis, by the way, has a secret literary identity, too, as Cosmo de Cosmos, whose new play, The Talking Flute, is to open that very night, and which, he is certain, will make his fortune.

Lucille, Francalou's daughter, who speaks in a pronounced Valley girl accent and whose head is rarely, if ever, out of a book, yearns for Damis, thinking him a rustic genius. ("God keep his flocks and bless his warbling notes/I see him now, scribbling amidst his goats.") Nevertheless, Damis ends up in the arms of Lisette, who disguises herself as her mistress while Lucille is busy making out with Mondor. Dorante, a young swain, pines for Lucille, too -- even though he has never seen her -- but his attempts at pretending to be a litterateur are riotously unconvincing and, anyway, he is being chased by Francalou, who wants to read to him his latest work, Bucephalus: A Dirge in Seven Acts. (He adds, "I only wrote it for a laugh, of course/It's on the death of Alexander's horse.")

A torrent of puns, gags, and wisecracks flows from characters who leap from one compromising situation to the next; The Metromaniacs features such a convoluted plot that it would be better diagrammed than explained. (Even Francalou calls it "this maddening maze.") So tangled do things get that Act II begins with Mondor offering a recap, promising the audience that there won't be a quiz. Thanks to Michael Kahn's tight direction and a cast that knows how to keep the ball in the air, a steady procession of laughs is guaranteed. Adam Lefevre's Francalou presides over the action with an air of noblesse oblige that does not disguise his enormous self-regard. Amelia Pedlow's Lucille is especially amusing when she restyles herself as a sex kitten, striking Marilyn Monroe-like poses complete with alarmingly pouty facial expressions. Gazing sexily at Dorante, she says, "Monsieur, we seem to be two passing ships." "Do you have some affliction of the lips?" he asks. As Lisette, Dina Thomas is the saucy French maid in its Platonic form, whether stunning others by hauling a large boulder -- it's a stage prop from Francalou's play -- or snapping her fingers impatiently to get Mondor's eyes off her bosom. Noah Averbach-Katz finds plenty of fun in Dorante's cluelessness: Glaring at Lucille and Mondor, whom he has caught in a passionate clinch, he announces, "I know what's going on here. I'm not blind!" -- the most futile objection ever made by a frazzled, jealous lover. Also earning laughs are Christian Conn as Damis, imagining his imminent theatrical success; Adam Green, leaping lustfully across class lines as Mondor; and Peter Kybart, in a constant state of apoplexy as Damis' uncle.

In addition to Noone's elegant set, Murell Horton's costumes are gorgeously embroidered period creations, each detail meticulously realized down to the last shoe buckle. Betsy Adams' lighting subtly, tastefully follows a day-into-night progression, concluding with a warmly candlelit interior. Matt Stine's sound design clearly and cleanly delivers Adam Wernick's faux-Baroque music.

I have one reservation about The Metromaniacs, and it's a fairly signifciant one: The sheer number of gags, absent the tiniest hint of emotional involvement, ultimately becomes a bit wearing. Consider Mondor's scoffing comment, "Brittany? That's nowheresville, it's outer sticks!/The chicks there carry Brittany spears! They're hicks!" The combination of a triple rhyme with a pun that namechecks a contemporary celebrity is breathtaking in its cleverness, but two acts of such treats, and nothing else, is tantamount to a three-course banquet consisting entirely of petits fours. Sooner or later, you'll get a stomachache.

Then again, the current scene doesn't offer so many great comedies that we can afford to overlook The Metromaniacs, and the cast is a thoroughgoing pleasure. In its fleetest, funniest moments, it is a fine example of French farce at its most agreeably deranged. -- David Barbour