"SCAPIN" by Moliére

San Francisco LOVES Bill Irwin!
This is no surprise. Since his days as Willie, the Clown with the Pickle Family Circus, teaming up with partner Geoff Hoyle (Mr. Sniff), Irwin has delighted and amazed us with his work. He is our Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, and Buster Keaton.  Enough cannot be said about Irwin's physicality. It's as though he were made of rubber; it appears that he can move his body in several directions at once; his neck and limbs seem to grow and shrink.  The only other actor who comes close is Jim Carrey. 

Irwin and Mark O'Donnell adapted Moliére's "Scapin"  first for the Seattle Repertory Theatre before its New York run where I like to think they perfected it before bringing it to San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre.  In classic satirical form, Irwin, who directed, updated the play with send-ups on current political, cultural, and social issues.  He breaks the fourth-wall and gets away with poking fun of his own profession: Theatre, the Art of. as well as theatregoers (focusing on subscribers, even appearing as one in a side balcony, in a Sarah Palin-like red suit) things that Moliére allowed in this particular play, according to an interview with Irwin, and why Irwin chose it.

The characters and the premise are close to stock Commedia D'el Arte: mistaken identities, conniving servants, the clueless rich, and oppressive, jack-booted gendarmes. Irwin plays Scapin, the title character, as both actor and clown.  Scapin is a servant to wealthy merchant, Argante (ACT regular, Steven Anthony Jones); his buddy, Sylvestre (Jud Williford, who is just about equal to Irwin's shtick), is servant to Geronte (Geoff Hoyle) who also is a wealthy merchant. Wealthy merchants don't have as much fun as servants, so Hoyle is somewhat restricted in his rôle, yet still gets off some funny bits as a man in a sack. True to Commedia, Argante's daughter has been missing for years only to be rediscovered at the end of the play as the raucus gypsy, Zerbinette (René Augesen, who is building quite a reputation for playing sexy, beautiful women. Perhaps this is not much of a stretch).

Octave (Gregory Wallace, another ACT regular), son of  Argante is married to an alleged foreigner, the vacuous blonde, Hyacinth (comely played by Ashley Wickett). Leander (dashing Patrick Lane) loves Zerbinette. You sense the womens' rivalry in the way they gleefully massacre each other's names. Then there's the maid, Nerine (beautifully underplayed by Omozé Idehenre), who arrives with suitcases and a huge steamer trunk she drags across the stage. Scapin is smitten and his compliments unintentionally end up as double entendres, causing him all kinds of confusion which he depicts hilariously with his hat, posture, and floppy hair.  Large sums of money are involved in the transactions between fathers and sons.  There's a trumped up hostage situation involving Geronte's son Leander and a boat.  Geronte responds to Scapin's explanation of why he needs the money with an exasperating, repeated, "But why did the boy get into the boat?"

Keith Pinto and Ben Johnson play threatening Gendarmes who stride menacingly across the stage with consummate precision, interrupting Scapin and Sylvestre's underhanded activities.   They also play agreeable, subservient Porters.

A bonus to Irwin's reworking of the play is his inclusion of his long time musician friends, Randall Craig (George), actor and musician with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and Pickle Family Circus founder;  and body-percussionist/dancer Keith Terry (Fred).  His interaction and repartee with them throughout is delightfully hilarious.  Craig and Terry accent and underscore the actions on stage and back up Irwin and Williford's occasional break out into jive and swing.   The actors' and musicians' comic timing is unsurpassed.

Please try to see this extraordinary production which ends its run on October 23rd.  Go to http://www.act-sf.org/.