STAGE REVIEW: FIGARO

Countess Almaviva (Elyse Mirto) and Suzanne (Angela Sauer) in Figaro. Photo Credit: Craig Schwartz.

The revolution will be staged

By Ed Rampell

This noisy A Noise Within production of Figaro is playwright Charles Morey’s freewheeling adaptation of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais’ 1784 play The Marriage of Figaro (which inspired Mozart’s 1786 opera of the same name). Like the original, Morey borrows freely and whimsically from the Comedie-Francaise, Italian commedia dell’arte and French farce.

Figaro’s storyline lends itself to high tragedy or low comedy: The no account Count Almaviva’s (Andrew Ross Wynn, who projects a Harvey Korman vibe) young, saucy servant Suzanne (the red wig-wearing Angela Sauer, who plays this part with all the comic subtlety of an I Love Lucyepisode) is about to wed the Count’s wisecracking manservant Figaro (Jeremy Guskin). Beaumarchais and Mozart have the Count assert droit du seigneur -- the feudal privilege of a nobleman to deflower/consummate the impending marriages of young women within their dominions on the wedding night.

Some may find Michael Michetti’s direction and this often frenetically paced two-acter to be witty, with dazzling word play, expertly acted and roguishly charming. Others may consider it to be half-witty, broad, loud and over the top.

Angela Balogh Calin’s colorful costumes certainly enhance the buffoonish ambiance of this production, which at times resembles a clownfest. As Almaviva, Wynn is not garbed as much as upholstered and embroidered into his rather ridiculous raiment. And as Countess Almaviva, Elyse Mirto is quite fetching while kvetching and prancing about in her lingerie type outfit. (Fun fact of the day: Marie-Antoinette actually portrayed this character, also known as Rosine or Rosina, in a 1785 production staged at Versailles.)

As the title character, Guskin plays the work’s central scheming scoundrel as a trickster with whom -- nod, nod, wink, wink -- the audience is in on the joke, if not in cahoots. But it is this knee-slapper that is at the core of the play, because the joke is on the aristocrats.

While there are a number of “war between the sexes” witticisms (usually at males’ expenses) in Figaro about the supposed natures of the genders, what’s most at play in this play is the “uppity” servant’s critique of the ruling class. For  both Beaumarchais and Mozart's Figaros are among the Western stage’s very first working class heroes.

During the American Revolution, our man Beaumarchais was a gunrunner for the revolutionary cause. And it’s not for nothing that the French revolutionary leader, George Jacques Danton, opined: “The Marriage of Figaro caused the French Revolution.” Of course, this inevitably led to Beaumarchais’ run-ins with the court’s censors, who were royal pains in the derriere. So the best part of Figaro is its class consciousness and use of humor to ridicule the servants’ “betters.” (Think of a satirical version of Downton Abbey, with Daisy grabbing a pitchfork to jab her pompous overlords.)

Figaro has some choice, politically astute, funny bon mots, catapulted off of Guskin’s tongue with snarky aplomb. For example, there is a good riff on Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, where our wag Figaro -- his tongue dipped in acid -- waxes poetic and splenetic about “Government of the cartels,” and so on. And there’s a good guillotine riposte as Figaro, the former title character of The Barber of Seville, shaves the Count who would violate his wife-to-be with a sharpened razor. Take one guess what song he hums or whistles while Almaviva experiences his close shave?

Morey’s adaptation of Beaumarchais’ Figaro premiered Off-Broadway in 2012 and is here part of A Noise Within’s “REVOLUTIONary” season, which in turn is part of the “Figaro Unbound: Culture, Power and Revolution at Play” program. This includes LA Opera’s presentation this season of the Figaro trilogy: The Ghosts of Versailles, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), which opens March 21 at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Figaro Unbound L.A. partners include ArcLight Cinemas, the Hammer Museum, Opera UCLA, A Noise Within, LA Theatre Works, FIDM Museum, the Huntington Library, LACMA, the Norton Simon Museum, the Getty Museum, the Opera League of Los Angeles, etc.

Figaro runs through May 10 at A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107. For more info: 636-356-3100, ext. 1; Figaro. For more info on the “Figaro Unbound”: Figaro Unbound.