NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- Wildly clever and a bit naughty, brimming with wordplay and swordplay, David Ives' English-language adaptation of Pierre Corneille's The Liar is next up at Antaeus.Does truth really matter in an age obsessed by the surface of things? When the charming and handsome pathological liar Dorante enters Paris, he impresses everyone who hears his stories. But as his lies multiply, will Dorante be able to keep them straight and still manage to get the girl?
In the Antaeus tradition best known as “partner casting,” two actors once again share every role, working together throughout the rehearsal process to enrich the creative experience for both cast and audience. The Liar is the hilarious tale of Dorante (Nicholas D’Agosto / Graham Hamilton), a charming young man newly arrived in Paris who has but a single flaw: he cannot tell the truth. In quick succession he meets Cliton (Rob Nagle / Brian Slaten) a manservant who cannot tell a lie, and falls in love with Clarice (Kate Maher / Jules Willcox), whom he unfortunately mistakes for her friend Lucrece (Ann Noble / Joanna Strapp). What our hero regrettably does not know is that Clarice is secretly engaged to his best friend Alcippe (Joe Delafield / Bo Foxworth). Nor is he aware that his father (Robert Pine / Peter Van Norden)is trying to get him married to Clarice – whom he thinks is Lucrece. Add to the mix identical twin maid servants Isabelle and Sabine (Gigi Bermingham / Karen Malina White, each playing both roles), and a script written entirely in rhyming couplets – and the result is a sparkling urban romance as fresh as the day Pierre Corneille wrote it, brilliantly adapted for today.
Written in 1643, Le Menteur (The Liar) was based on a Spanish story of adventure written by Juan Ruiz de Alarcón y Mendoza that Corneille fashioned into a comedy of manners. Corneille’s The Liar depended less on thrill and more on verbal repartée, the follies of modern courtship and Parisian life than its Spanish precedent. In writing The Liar, Corneille invented the comedy of manners, which he described as “the portrayal of social intercourse among persons of good breeding.”
“The Liar is one of those plays that seem to be made out of almost nothing, yet end up being about so much,” wrote Ives in an essay. “My version is what I call a ‘translaptation,’ a translation with a heavy dose of adaptation. I contend one must think as a playwright, not as a translator. One must ask: what was on Corneille’s chest and how can I use what’s on mine to create something with dramatic and comedic integrity? In other words, you have to write the play Corneille would have written today, in English. In the end, I did to The Liar what Corneille had done to his Spanish source: I ran with it.”
Performances of The Liar take place Oct. 10 through Dec. 1 on Thursdays and Fridays @ 8 pm; Saturdays @ 2 pm and 8 pm; and Sundays @ 2 pm (no matinee performance on Saturday, Oct. 12, dark Thursday, Nov. 28); There will be six previews, Oct. 3-Oct. 9: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Tuesday and Wednesday, all at @ 8 pm, and Sunday @ 2 pm. Tickets to the Opening Night performances on Oct. 10 and Oct. 11 are $34, after which all tickets are $30 on Thursdays and Fridays and $34 on Saturdays and Sundays; previews are $15. The Antaeus Company is located at 5112 Lankershim Blvd in North Hollywood, CA 91601. Parking is available for $7 in the lot at 5125 Lankershim Blvd. (west side of the street), just south of Magnolia.For reservations and information, call 818-506-1983 or go to www.antaeus.org.
