Taking Molière out of his element

Amy Russ and James Lloyd Reynolds in "The Misanthrope" at the New Repertory Theatre. (Andrew Brilliant/Brilliant Pictures)

WATERTOWN - The French court of 1666 may seem very far removed from modern life - unless you really listen to Molière's classic satire of it, "The Misanthrope." Look past the rhyming couplets, the archaic etiquette, and the footmen, and you'll see an assortment of vain hypocrites, cruel gossips, and self-destructive truth-tellers that wouldn't be out of place in Washington, Hollywood, or a corporate office.

Modern productions can successfully underscore the play's relevance by updating its setting, or they can, equally successfully, keep it in period and let the parallels speak for themselves. In the New Repertory Theatre's 19th-century French setting, however, Molière's courtiers inhabit neither their time nor our own.

Instead, they've somehow landed in a Belle Epoque ice cream parlor, complete with ferns and gramophone, that feels at once too modern for the play's stylized, rhyming speech and too quaint for its piercing wit. This staging is pretty, frivolous, and often amusing, but it has no teeth. And it's hard to countenance a Molière who doesn't bite.

Some of the lightness comes from the production's choice of translation, Constance Congdon's sprightly, self-delightedly clever version. Congdon's rendering has fizz but no shadows; it sounds more like farce than satire, and it showcases the characters' ridiculousness at the expense of suggesting the more complex emotions behind their glittering masks. It makes sense to put these people in Rafael Jaen's confectionary costumes and send them twirling around Audra Avery's spun-sugar set, but none of it feels very much like Molière.

That said, director Adam Zahler keeps his nimble cast dancing trippingly through their giddy machinations, with plenty of sparkling repartee and light-handed slapstick. It's the kind of show that has Oronte, the dismally awful poet whose fury at misanthropic Alceste's criticism launches the wisp of a plot, ride in on a bicycle. And - hallelujah! - Oronte is played by Billy Meleady, who's been away from Boston's stages for more than three years and whose dryly absurd performance here is a sheer, if small, delight.

Jason Bowen also finds some hugely entertaining moments in the vanity of another courtier, Acaste, and Ellen Colton mines the catty role of Arsinoë for every shred of gleeful malice. Most important, in the title role James Lloyd Reynolds creates an Alceste who is believable in his fury at the falsehood and frippery that surrounds him, but also touching in his blindness to its manifestations in the woman he loves, the coquettish Célimène.

Reynolds is at his best in Alceste's scenes with Philinte, the stolid and pragmatic friend who tries to curb his insistence on always speaking the truth, no matter what the cost. Steven Barkhimer's Philinte neatly blends gravitas and self-mocking good humor, and both actors handle the rhyming verse expertly: They help us savor the rhymes without ever letting them overpower the sense, so it feels almost natural to hear these men speaking in couplets.

Amy Russ's Célimène is anything but natural. Of course that's as it should be; Célimène delights in her own artifice and in the flirtatious webs she weaves with it. Ideally, though, we'd also see some hint of a heart beneath the flourishes, some reason to care whether Alceste wins her - just as Zillah Glory makes Célimène's companion, Eliante, not just silly but endearing.

Molière's characters don't have to swear and bluster, as modern directors sometimes push them to do. But they do have to suggest some darkness beneath the banter. Like the verse in which they express themselves, they're elegant and often beguiling, but they're never free.

Louise Kennedy can be reached at kennedy@globe.com.