'Misanthrope' a little too much for Berkshire company

STOCKBRIDGE -- It is courageous of the Berkshire Theatre Festival to produce "The Misanthrope," and maybe a bit foolhardy. Moliere's comedy is one of the great classics of the theater, but it is challenging to stage; the company's effort is honorable but only partially successful. The house was not full for a Thursday matinee, and there were many defections at intermission.

Alceste, the misanthrope, rejects everything false and insincere about society, partly out of principle, partly out of childish ego. He loves Celimene, the embodiment of everything he despises. Moliere was probably writing about his own relationship with his wife, more than two decades his junior; onstage he played Alceste, and his wife Celimene.

Comic but disquieting predicaments arise from the conflicting claims of individuality and social organization, and from the irreconcilable contradictions within Alceste's character.

Anders Cato's staging is often elegant to look at. Without the budget of Louis XIV to work with, Carl Sprague's ingenious period settings suggest the opulence of the Sun King's court; Olivera Gajic's costumes range across centuries, suggesting the timeless pertinence of the play. The men appear in variations of period dress; the women look like fashion drawings by Erte. Scott Killian's music neatly bridges Baroque French harpsichord style and heavy metal.

Richard Wilbur's famous and brilliant verse translation, rhymes clicking neatly into place, requires a nimbleness of tongue and mind that does not come easily to American actors. Only Kate Jennings Grant as Celimene, Tara Franklin as her cousin, and Stephen Petrarca as Alceste's confidant Philinte found ways of sounding natural and meaningful while simultaneously glorying in virtuoso verbal display. As a result, these three created the most persuasive characterizations, and Grant in particular was so scintillating, so inventive, even in deceit, that it seemed no wonder Alceste was besotted.

As Alceste, David Adkins was so American and out of period that he was even further removed from his surroundings. He is lightweight in voice and appearance for the role, and seemed more petulant than pointed in his tirades, but he worked hard, and his unmediated childlike earnestness put you on his side. The others were encouraged to engage in the broadest burlesque, magnified by purposefully hideous costumes -- or maybe they just settled for it. The men, in particular, offensively confused the portrayal of self-infatuated affectation with homophobic caricature. Karen MacDonald played Arsinoe as a Gilbert & Sullivan Gorgon, and she did it with lubricious zest; how much more interesting it would have been if she had been as elegantly poised as the others, but with an adder's sting.

Director Cato was better at creating stage pictures than at helping actors to develop characterizations -- the opening glimpses of shadowy courtiers pursuing their pleasures set the tone. The final image of Alceste and Celimene, seated on opposite sides of the stage, outside the proscenium frame, showed they had arrived by independent routes at the same desolate destination -- isolation and loneliness.

The Misanthrope
Play by Moliere
Directed by: Anders Cato. Sets, Carl Sprague. Costumes, Olivera Gajic. Music, Scott Killian.
At: Berkshire Theatre Festival, through Sept. 4. 413-298-5576.