“Don Juan,” lives and loves at Westport Playhouse. It’s wondrous to watch, but this is not a pleasant portrait. From the get-go, this noxious nobleman is proclaimed “the greatest bastard who ever walked the earth.” He not just loves-and-leaves women, he loves-and-marries-and-leaves-them, often in the space of a few hours. He watches, amused, while his multiple fiancees fight over him. He ruins engagements and upends solid relationships. He deflowers a nun. He’s loathsome for the whole show, and then he gets punished for it.
Don Juan as an unrepentant scoundrel getting his comeuppance is not some #metoo revisionism. This production of Moliere’s “Don Juan,” at the playhouse through Nov. 23, has many modern flourishes but remains true to the original script, written in 1665. The demonization and demise of this famed lover has always been a part of his legend.
Moliere has become the go-to classical playwright that regional theaters do when they need a break from Shakespeare. In Connecticut, the Yale Rep, Long Wharf and Hartford Stage have each done several Moliere plays.
David Kennedy, the associate artistic director of Westport Playhouse who directed a solid “Tartuffe” there in 2012, decided that now was the time for “Don Juan,” but he couldn’t find a translation or adaptation that suited him. Kennedy heard about a 2015 student production at the Yale School of Drama, and while that version (modernized, with slang and contemporary references) didn’t fit his bill either, he contacted the translator/adaptor Brendan Pelsue and asked him to craft a new one.
Too many productions of “Don Juan” are dark and preachy, taking all the fun out of a play that is meant to be scandalously funny. The best thing about Kennedy and Pelsue’s work here is that they never forget they’re doing a comedy.
Watching a smarmy seducer gets his comeuppance is good unclean fun. There’s no nudity in the show, the violence is mostly formalized in swordfights or supernatural encounters. The psychological torment, however, is constant. The play is voyeuristic, it’s in bad taste, but it’s hard to take your eyes off of it. Kennedy stages Don Juan’s sordid encounters intimately on a grand open stage, with few sets or props but with lots of environmental effects, from backdrops to projections to a ghostly apparition and one of the most realistic statues you’ve ever seen onstage. The intense up-close encounters scenes demonstrate how appallingly personal Don Juan’s beastliness can get. The openness of Marsha Ginsberg’s scenic design gives the show a necessary grandness and universality. This isn’t about one bad apple. Don Juan symbolizes an insidious style of smug arrogance that doesn’t just affect those close to it; it’s an attitude that can challenges cultures and countries, topple civilizations.
Nick Westrate plays Don Juan with a thoroughly modern sense of smarminess. Westrate smirks incessantly. He wears loud suits and louder T-shirts that announce that Don Juan’s not a hopeless romantic, he’s a straight-out indefensible narcissist.
Don Juan’s loyal-to-a-fault servant Sganarelle is on hand to comment on his master’s evil doings. Some of that running commentary involves running from cuckolded lovers or debtors. Bhavesh Patel takes the classical archetype of the narrator clown — a staple in Moliere plays — and freshens it with the breezy “Can you believe this?” air of a contemporary stand-up comic. That includes some meta comedy moves, like addressing the audience directly and opining “I’ve seen this play before.”
A diligent eight-person ensemble handles dozens of roles, giving the predatory Don Juan plenty to prey upon. Carson Elrod and Ariana Venturi are particularly skilled at keeping their diverse characters fresh and funny, and it’s a pleasure to watch them get in Westrate’s face. Sganarelle’s no saint either, and gets in some amusing scuffles while defending his master.
One question that’s highlighted by having Don Juan be so dastardly and Sganarelle so dutiful: Why does the servant stick around? The theme of blind obedience is one that Kennedy and Pelsue are happy to explore, right up to the closing of the curtain.
Brendan Pelsue’s adaptation is full of respect for Moliere’s original. He cuts a few scenes down to their essence, but since the show runs two and a half hours (including intermission) even with those cuts, he’s doing us a favor there. When a joke won’t work without explaining it, Pelsue explains, usually by adding more jokes. He turns monologues into snappy dialogues just by adding a few reaction lines or back-and-forth expressions. The debates about love and honor don’t get tedious. Religious dogma is downplayed. This new version, coupled with Kennedy’s clear direction, is about accenting what we find objectionable about Don Juan today, and that’s plenty.
“Don Juan” is not a morality play. Its anti-hero stays immoral to the end. His story is crazed and complicated, and very much a comedy. This underappreciated 350-year-old play by one of theater’s all-time master satirists is scarily appropriate for our times. It can be hard to take, but so worthwhile. “A cruel nobleman is a horrible thing,” the play tells us. But he can also be terribly entertaining.
DON JUAN by Moliere, translated and adapted by Brendan Pelsue, directed by David Kennedy, runs through Nov. 23 at Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court, Westport. Performances are Tuesday at 7 p.m., Wednesday at 2 and 8 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $40-$70. 888-927-7529, westportplayhouse.org.
Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com.
