With Witty Modern Rhyming Couplets, Theatre 40's 'The Metromaniacs' Celebrates The Joys Of Language

For Beverly Hills-based Theatre 40, its latest production is a celebration of language.

The company's next offering is The Metromaniacs, David Ives retelling of Alexis Piron’s 18th century French farce, told entirely in rhyming couplets. Performances are Thursday, July 21-Sunday, Aug. 21 at the group’s Reuben Cordova Theatre on the Beverly Hills High School campus (for details see below).

Metromaniacs are people obsessed with poetry, not public transportation, and Ives uses puns, forced rhymes, and anachronistic words and phrases to create his confection of mistaken identity, misplaced ardor, a fight for true love, lovers in disguise, improbable coincidences, misunderstandings and lies building on lies.

It’s springtime in Paris, 1738, and the poetry craze is all the rage. Damis, a young aspiring poet with a serious case of verse-mania, falls for the works of a mysterious poetess from Breton. She turns out to be none other than the wealthy gentleman Francalou, also besotted with rhyming.?Meanwhile, Damis’s non-literary friend Dorante has fallen in love with Francalou’s sexy but dimwitted daughter, Lucille, who mistakes her new suitor for her favorite poet—Damis. Chaos ensues with scheming servants, pseudonyms and even a duel with pistols.

Piron’s inspiration probably came from real-life events as in 1729 Paris was agog with the poems of Antoinette Malcrais de La Vigne, am enigmatic rhymster from Brittany. None other than writer, philosopher, poet and dramatist Voltaire wrote a poem singing her praises and allegedly publicly offering to marry the poetess. Eventually it was revealed that the female rhymer was actually a man, Paul Desforges-Maillard, living not in Brittany, but in Paris, and avenging a poetry establishment that didn’t appreciate his talent.

Ives, a successful playwright in his own right, has found success bring his deft touch to obscure French comedies. His partnership with Michal Kahn, artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., has wielded “transplaptations” (translation + adaptation) of Pierre Corneille’s The Liar and The Heir Apparent from?Le Légataire Universel?by Jean-Fran?ois Regnard. “With the Metromaniacs, he brings his brilliant sense of comedic timing to another lost classic,” says director Marjorie Hayes.

“The piece is so artfully done,” says Hayes. And Ives has fun with his rhymes pairing "Bittany" with "kitteny," "news" with "chartreuse," "strophes" and "trophies" and even "rival" with "adjectival." “Ives is so irreverent,” adds Hayes, “and he succeeds in creating an amalgam of periods, making old plays accessible to contemporary audiences.”

Finally Getting It And The CalArts Connection

About five years ago, David Hunt Stafford, Theatre 40’s managing and artistic director, was having lunch with actors Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, longtime supporters of the company. “They told me their friend actor Michael Goldstrum (who appeared in Luv at Theatre 40 in 2011) was appearing in this very funny play with rhyming couplets at the Old Globe in San Diego."

Stafford decided to track down what turned out to be The Metromaniacs, “and was charmed by it.” He did his research and contacted the publisher and was turned down for rights several times. “We’re a smaller 99-seat theater and publishers hold out for bigger venues like the Geffen or the Pasadena Playhouse. We had to wait two or three years.”

Director Marjorie Hayes

When it came time to find a director, Stafford turned to his CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) classmate Hayes. Her international career has taken her to Poland, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Off Broadway and more. “She comes to L.A. once in a while and as a buddy I asked if she’d direct for us. She’s been an old friend from 50 years, and it’s been a great experience with her as a guest artist. And now she’s going to direct a show for us every year.”

Along with Hayes and Hunt, the CalArts connection continues with two current graduate students, Alec Anderson Carrasco and Josephine Nunez.

Following are excerpts from my Q&A with Hayes about the joys and challenges of bringing The Metromaniacs to the stage.

What's the show's appeal?

Of course, the title is hilarious. I love the whole idea of people mad for poetry.

We’re a visual society now, always interacting with our screens that we can’t put down. But in history it was words that carried the meaning. I like the idea of people drunk on language. In the Elizabethan days of Shakespeare for party entertainment people would turn over their plate and find a stanza of poetry. There was a time when you couldn’t turn on the TV; in the Middle Ages people got their news from the town crier and language reigned supreme.

The piece revels in the power of words and creates a world of Watteau (painter Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721, known for works of Italian comedy and ballet) in 18th century France that is total champagne and bubbles.

Can you explain the plot? Most productions include a diagram in the program to help the audience keep the characters and their relationships straight.

Ives is famous for saying ‘it’s all in the timing’ and keeping the action of romance, goofy couples falling in love in a ‘forest,’ fight scenes and a lot of craziness going. I think he’s saying, ‘it’s okay. I know it’s confusing.’

In translating from the original French, Ives has made it clear that the rhyming and jokes are the stars. He’s said there are five plots, none of which is important.

Jeremy Schaye and Alec Anderson Carrasco in The Metromaniacs. Photo by Michele Young

The first time I read the play it drove me crazy. You have the two female characters both with “L” names, Lucille and Lizette. But I think Ives was just having fun with the rhyming and enjoying adding to audiences’ confusion.

Mandy Fason and Josephine Nunez in “The Metromaniacs.” Photo by Michele Young

In live theatre you take in information through your ears and characters with names that sound the same can be easily misinterpreted. It’s my job and goal to make the relationships clear and help audiences keep the characters straight, even if that's secondary to appreciating the dialogue.

What Did You Learn In Your Research?

The event that probably motivated Piron was a big scandal at the time and Voltaire was humiliated. He can’t have been happy when Piron’s satire showed up and it was a hit. The story goes that when Piron was up for membership in the Académie Fran?aise, Voltaire voted him down.

He was an iconoclast, famous in his teens for a poem that translates to “ode to a penis.” Out of favor for his wildness, he got rich writing vaudeville and bawdy stuff for the people for non-state subsidized entertainments outside the city limits. Le Métromanie (poetry crazy), the basis of The Metromanics, is his only famous play.

What Are The Challenges?

It can be daunting to make the rhyming and couplets sound like human speech. But we have a wonderful cast that can handle the poetry. We have the ‘youngsters’ as I call them and seasoned veterans like David as Francalou and John Wallace Combs as Mondor.

Mandy Fason and John Wallace Combs in The Metromaniacs. Photo by Michele Young

It’s not a modern play and there aren’t that many clues to help flesh out the characters and make their journeys clear. We’ve had to use our abilities as storytellers to create storylines. In rehearsal it’s been a rigorous but fun process to ask question after question and come up with answers.

While the characters are classic Commedia dell’arte stereotypes—the lovers, the comic servants, the rich old man and Francalou as Il Dottore (the doctor)—we do them in a contemporary way. The heightened language requires a comic size that we’ve worked to achieve.

A successful farce must move at a frantic pace with action piled on action. As a proponent of physical theatre with a level of proficiency in movement work (she teaches The Performance of Language at the University of North Texas) my joy is helping the actors find the action so they’re not just standing there talking, and this is a very talky play.?There must be physical and slapstick comedy to amplify the language.

What Does The Show Look Like?

Jeff Rack, the set designer, is so talented and has created Francalou’s ballroom where the action takes place, and the 'forest' inside that’s the setting for Fancalou’s play, also called The Metromaniacs, that’s the play within the play. It just adds to the mixups. It’s all so meta.

Is There A Theme?

There’s a lot of confusion in the play and it does take a willing suspension of disbelief. I think the idea of the play is that life is full of chaos, and we don’t always know what is going to happen or why, so we just have to try to enjoy it. And in this tense time in our history where we’re anxious about where the world is headed; this is a healthy tonic for us all.

How Do You Want Audiences To Leave?

Absolutely delighted and charmed after a laugh workout. I’m hoping it will be totally enjoyable and people will say 'it’s a laugh riot.' There are times in rehearsal we can’t continue we’re laughing so hard.

The Reuben Cordova Theatre is at 241 S. Moreno Dr., Beverly Hills. Performances are at 8 p.m., Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m., Mondays. Tickets are $35 and available by phone at 310-364-0535 or online at ww.theatre40.org. Free parking is available in the parking lot under the theatre. To access, enter through the driveway at the intersection of Durant and Moreno Drives.

Steve Simmons is an accomplished writer and editor who writes about a wide array of topics including entertainment. This article first appeared in his blog, www.stevesimmonswrites.com. His successful experience at The Beverly Hills Courier and other publications set the stage for his blog. Contact Steve at [email protected] or 626-788-6734.