There are a lot of reasons to catch 2nd Story Theatre's terrific production of Molière's "School for Wives." Chief among them is a chance to see a master at the top of his craft.

Ed Shea, who usually occupies the director's chair at 2nd Story, is making a rare stage appearance as Arnolphe, who is obsessed with being cuckolded by whomever he marries. And he is sensational, an actor who never relies on pat solutions. Arnolphe is a sort of poster child for jealousy, although Shea never makes him seem a two-dimensional stereotype. His Arnolphe is a complicated, all too human sort.

We recoil when Shea's Arnolphe tells about his efforts to raise a future wife who is a complete airhead. Arnolphe is a crude, tough-talking sort who loves putting down his intended. But he's also a little pathetic. He actually thinks Agnes, his young charge, has feelings for him.

Shea plays the part a little like a thug from New Jersey, dropping the "g" at the end of his words. He's supposed to be a schemer, a plotter, but he's really missing the whole point. No woman could love a man as insecure as this.

Anyway, Shea's timing is impeccable, his gift for getting a laugh, well intact. At one point, Arnolphe reads a love letter Agnes has written to her young admirer, Horace. But we hear Agnes reciting it, as piano music ripples in the background. After she has poured out her soul, Shea turns to the audience and with deadpan delivery calls Agnes a name that won't find its way into the pages of this newspaper.

Shea's is an intense, taut portrayal, with wild mood swings, from real emotional highs when he thinks his wedding is on, that Agnes is his, to devastating disappointment when his romantic rival gets the better of him.

But Shea is not the only plus in this riotous production. Young Gabby Sherba, who got her professional start at 2nd Story, was back doing a marvelous job as Agnes, who is surprisingly together for someone raised in such a deprivation. Sherba's a real charmer in this role, someone who is still a child in one sense, but blossoming as a woman. She may not be an Einstein, but she's together enough to establish what appears to be a healthy relationship with Horace, played by Jeff Church, another young talent who proved a real natural with a knack for this Richard Wilbur adaptation and its rhyming verse.

More comic touches come from Tom Roberts and Paula Faber as Arnolphe's servants. Rendueles Villalba was the weak link in the cast as the priest Chrysalde.

And if you need more reasons to see this very funny show, there is Molière the playwright, who really can't be beat when it comes to farces and comedies of errors. Horace doesn't know that Arnolphe is Agnes' guardian, and confesses his plans to him. But just when Arnolphe thinks he has outwitted Horace, the young lover gets the upper hand. And we watch Arnolphe melt with disappointment, sort of like Wile E. Coyote after yet another encounter with the Road Runner.

The performance takes place, like most all 2nd Story shows, in the round. And in a nice touch, Shea and co-director Pat Hegnauer have used strobe lights in the chase scenes, where Arnolphe runs after Horace, making them look like footage from silent films of the 1920s.

Molière's "School for Wives" is one of those old-school comedies that, like a fine French chardonnay, just seems to get better the age.

2nd Story Theatre Artistic Director Ed Shea has established a marvelous model for his Molière theatrical extravaganzas, producing plays that are full-bodied comedies on the surface but with slight undertones of melancholy and intellect below. This superb production is no exception; in fact, it may be his best, perhaps due in no small part to long-time dramatic collaborator, Pat Hegnauer, who co-directed the show.

From Alison Walker Carrier's wacky costumes (including bowler hats and silk vests aplenty) which are reminiscent of the silent screen era, to Ron Allen's strobe lighting that literally puts you right in the middle of a madcap movie memory, the trip is like popping the cork on a magnum of "bubbly" sparkling, effervescent and more than a little mind boggling.

Shea takes the lead role as the obsessive and possessive Arnolphe, a man so afraid of being made a cuckold that he attempts to "create" the perfect wife by keeping his ward, Agnes (Gabby Sherba), sequestered in a convent until age 17. For the misinformed Arnolphe, stupidity is as important a virtue as virginity in a wife-to-be. So the 52-year-old Arnolphe moves Agnes into his estate where he plans to use her naivetè to his advantage in wooing her into his marriage bed.

From the beginning Father Chrysalde (Rendueles Villalba) cautions Arnolphe about the "wisdom" of trying to mold Agnes into "the ideal wife," but his friend is obsessed with the idea of having a faithful wife, unlike the wives of his friends, friends that Arnolphe publicly and privately ridicules.

Shea's performance is nothing short of spectacular, gleaning riotous laughter from a lifted eyebrow, a frown, or convoluted body language.

No less stellar is the performance of Jeff Church as Horace, Agnes' true love.

Church bounces witty repartee off Shea like a seasoned pro as the two of them conspire, each to have his way with the object of his desire.

Sherba's portrayal Agnes is a joy as well; her facial expressions convey meaning when words are duplicitous, and her naive charm is infectious and endearing.

French farce wouldn't live up to its name without a plot twist to complicate the storyline; the complication here involves mistaken identity - the mother of all things comedic in classical theater - in which Agnes' suitor, Horace, doesn't realize that his supposed friend Arnolphe is also his chief rival, a man known as Monsieur de la Souche. Arnolphe enlists the help his servants, Alain (Tom Roberts) and Georgette (Paula Faber), to help foil the advances of Horace on his beloved Agnes. Roberts and Faber are delightful as the mismatched couple on a misguided mission. F. William Oakes is a scream as a solicitor explaining the legal ramifications of marriage to an unappreciative Arnolphe.

The Chardonnay grape is a versatile, low-maintenance grape that produces a number of distinctive flavors that appeal to a wide range of personal predilections. "School for Wives" is just such a show; thinking is optional; you can just sit back and savor the flavor of classic French comedy done to a perfect bouquet.

There are too few superlatives in the English language to give this production the praise it deserves; only an audience can do that, so I urge you not to miss it.

With increasing delight, we knew what was ahead for us when Tom Roberts, in whiteface and rosy cheeks, gave the 2nd Story Theatre audience their customary instructions in verse: "If at intermission you phone, text or tweet/ please turn it off when you return to your seat," and such.

That part wasn't written by poet Richard Wilbur, the adaptor of Molière's The School for Wives, but it demonstrated that this production (through December 12), directed by Ed Shea and co-founder Pat Hegnauer, is being conducted in the full spirit of the farcical proceedings.

Roberts plays Alain, a servant along with wife Georgette (Paula Faber), who together maintain the default comical tone of the play, that of the powerless being mistreated by the powerful but who eventually get back with fitting vengeance.

They are the servants of Arnolphe (Shea), a middle-class, middle-aged bachelor so horrified by the potential of someday being cuckolded by a wife that he dec-ades ago made preventive plans. He took guardianship of orphaned four-year-old Agnes (Gabby Sherba), then placed her in a convent where nuns were instructed to keep her ignorant as well as innocent; his eventual wife would be dumb as a stump but immune from the popular social convention of sleeping around.

In the opening scene, his friend Chrysalde (Rendueles Villalba), a monsignor, tries to convince him that being cuckolded by an unfaithful wife is far better than being constantly harangued by a shrewish one. Arnolphe is unmoved. He will marry Agnes.

Agnes is unaware of his plans for her. A handsome young man named Horace (Jeff Church) has been mooning and spooning outside her window and, being unusually trusting, she has succumbed to his charms - though so far she has yielded only her heart. Horace is unaware that the kindly man, a friend of his father's, who lends him money early on, is his beloved's jailkeeper, and Arnolphe at first doesn't know that the captivating object of the boy's hormonal attention is his captive ward.

Wilbur's translation/adaptation is exquisite without being precious. Arnolphe wants a wife "who, indeed, if she were asked in some Insipid parlor game, 'What rhymes with drum?'/Would answer in all innocence, 'A fife'/In short, I want an unaccomplished wife."

This is a romantic farce, so we know where everything is heading, that the young lovers will end up united. The fun is in the silly complications leading up to that happy ending. There are many. There is an abused servants turnabout, where their boss recruits Alain and Georgette to practice pummeling him as they would a thief, and they get into it with gusto. Arnolphe yo-yos between rage and love, and Shea brings down the house with a two-word response after his character finishes reading his ward's letter to her lover. When Agnes discovers his marital scheme, he gets a similar response with a similarly well-timed, "Well, now ya know."

Instead of multiple slammed doors we get a revolving door, for perfect timing with simultaneous entrances and exits.

A strobe light during wordless transition between some scenes provides an entertaining silent movie effect as characters tiptoe or hustle. Costume designer Allison Walker Carrier continues the 1920s setting with tweed knickers on Horace, and she has Arnolphe stiffly dignified in coattails.

Church's Horace has the additional and uncanny advantage of the actor looking like a generic young movie star of the era, complete with John Barrymore's straight nose. Shea adds an interesting dimension to his own character by making him sound like a lower-class New Yorker of the period, stopping just short of throwing in "boid" and "goil" now and then; his Arnolphe clearly is a self-made man. Sherba could be dressed any way and say any thing and her Agnes would still come across sweetly innocent; at the opening, her wistful and beautiful delivery of the love song classic "Plaisir d'Amour" charmingly establishes her character.

The above are well-supported in incidental roles by F. William Oakes, Walter Cotter, and Eric Behr.

Shea, 2nd Story's artistic director, has only occasionally been acting in 2nd Story productions in recent seasons, what with directing and administrative responsibilities. Let's hope that the reception of this Molière encourages him to stride the boards regularly once again.

There is only one regrettable moment in 2nd Story Theatre's School for Wives.

When Ed Shea's Arnolphe leaves the stage and love conquers all.

So mindfully, physically, emotionally, and fascinatingly funnily, has Shea created this character, that when he is chased away near play's end so the earnest lovers he has labored to keep apart, unite, it's tempting to hope for a reversal of fates. Anything to bring back this brilliantly realized character.

If this sounds like a rave, a theater-goer's bouquet at the feet of an actor, it is.

Ed Shea, back on stage

Shea began his career in Providence crafting finely edged, memorable characters, and he's done much to help other actors in Rhode Island strive to match his bulls-eye intensity. In other words, he's directed (and exacted fine performances all along the way) at 2nd Story Theatre, which he co-founded and steers with Pat Hegnauer.

But now, as is much publicized (and wisely so), by 2nd Story, Shea is back on stage, directed by Pat (and by himself as well), at the center of the well-known Molière farce that lampoons the vanity of man's attempt to control woman. (Forward-thinking for 1662, no doubt, and given a modern turbo-charge by poet Richard Wilbur's robust translation nearly 300 years later.)

Playing beyond wit

The play itself is full of wit, but is often tossed off in breakneck fashion, galloping on meter and betting on the charm of dramatic velocity. But watch Shea enter, with his Sancho Panza-like companion Chrysalde (Rendueles Villalba), while ingenue Agnes (played sweetly by Gabby Sherba) sings from her moonlit balcony, and everything slows to Shea's rapt face. Amid dark punctuation of mustache, bowler hat, and arched eyebrows, he beams like Charlie Chaplin, creating a poignant mime show of adoration. It's gorgeous, absorbing, and lays the foundation for a remarkable vulnerability that takes Shea's Arnolphe far beyond the easily-sketched, satirical schemer he's often portrayed as.

From here, and for two wonderful hours, it's all Arnolphe - a virtuoso portrayal fueled by exhilarating physicality - movement specific and so acrobatic, yet never out of character. Shea makes every gesture just large enough, his body taut as a spring, his face pliant as a vaudeville clown's.

George Costanza on speed

And his voice. It's gutsy to do Molière in a modern-day Five Points accent, something akin to George Costanza on speed, but it works. It takes this Arnolphe away from drawing room preciousness and gives him street smarts and street humor. The flat vowels and dropped endings give Shea something more to chew on, adding facets to catch the light and play of the playwright's insights into men, women, love, and loss.

Freed up by his aural Americanization of the role, Shea plays with the language like Brazilian footballers play with a soccer ball. Never once, in long monologues and rapid exchanges, does he lapse into predictable meter, and yet the rhymes arrive and land, and with his excellent comedic timing (more credit to music hall and vaudevillians who've no doubt inspired), the storytelling feels richer, Arnolphe's comedic hubris all the more real and therefore touching.

A cast to complement

This is bravura stuff, and the entire cast has been directed to complement the attack. It's tough to compare to Shea on this one, but Jeff Church, who as Horace ignorantly confesses his wooing of Arnolphe's intended to Arnolphe himself, adds an endearingly goofy, giraffe-like physicality that beautifully contrasts the watch-spring that is Arnolphe. They're the winning pair on stage, buttressed by the Punch-and-Judy pugilism of servants Alain and Georgette (Tom Roberts and Paula Faber).

There's some excellent stagecraft as well. Set designer Trevor Elliot's period-style revolving door allows rapid scene changes (and provides the perfect metaphor for a woman's open-door policy to a secret lover). Secondly, a set of flicker-style silent movie pantomimes move the plot forward between certain scenes, and take full advantage of Church's natural gifts for Gumby-like grace. He's even funnier in strobe.

But for all the fun, the fantastic bits, the rhymes and rhythms fresh within Ed Shea's jazz-like mastery of timing and syncopation, this School for Wives triumphs in that moment when Arnolphe loses his charge. Shea's confessions of love, his physical display of vulnerability in the very cuckoldry he's schemed to avoid, and that memory of our first vision of him - his face shining, naively, up at his songbird - make for a real hero we want to triumph. His loss is ours, his departure our loss as well.

Screw love. And that's no farce.

2nd Story's season continues in unmatched stride with School For Wives, a 350-year-old comedy as clever and fresh as the day it was written. Or at least it is in the capable hands of 2nd Story's Ed Shea, who directs and also, in a rare treat of a stage performance, plays the lead character in this Molière farce, which runs until December 12 at the Warren theater.

Yeah, I know, the word Molière sounds all French and pretentious. Also, all the dialogue's in rhyming verse. But wait! This play is for everyone - high school kids, hipsters and your mom will all love the rollicking action, witty repartee and split-second comic timing, not to mention the tender-hearted love story. And then there's the way the play explores relationships and how fruitless it is to try to control our lovers, no matter how vulnerable they make us feel. Yup, this is great date-night theater, too.

The play opens as Arnolphe, a rough-around-the-edges, self-made businessman who loves a good laugh at others' expense, extols the virtues of a "stupid" wife. All he wants, he says, is a woman who will "say her prayers, love me, spin and sew." And he thinks he has just such a woman waiting for him - a peasant's daughter half his age whom he has brought up in ignorance at a convent and is now grooming for a life of wifely submission.

He is, of course, as pathetic as he is proud - Molière, often called the father of French farce (and, indeed, of Western comedy in general) is clearly setting this fool up for a fall. What's unexpected is just how sympathetic, how well-drawn and alive, is Shea's interpretation of the character. Molière himself played Arnolphe the first time he staged School For Wives - the play is thought to echo his stormy relationship with his much younger wife - and Shea helps show us how Arnolphe, wracked by jealousy, suffers in a way that cannot fail to be touching, ridiculous as he is.

Jeff Church as handsome Horace and Gabby Sherba as lovely young Agnes are the innocent foils to Arnolphe's scheming, and together with Shea, hand in central performances as compelling and real as anything I've seen this season - a fact that's all the more impressive given Church and Sherba's youth. Shea has a knack with young actors, and these two have good looks along with talent. They're actors to watch.

Tom Roberts and Paula Faber make a great comic duo in servants Alain and Georgette, and the rest of the cast hand in fine, if small, performances. Only Rendueles Villalba as Chrysalde stumbles, seeming uncomfortable with the verse - unfortunately he's in the opening scene, but it's brief so don't be discouraged if you go.

Shea gives us a familiar lens - silent movies - through which to interpret this 17th century farce, and it's a smart, accessible decision. The cast sport powdered faces, pencilled eyebrows and bowler hats in a nod to vaudeville traditions. There's a lot of emphasis on physical humor. And, in a wonderful effect, some scenes are played under strobe lights with a tinny piano soundtrack. The characters, suddenly appearing as if in black and white, move through the set like Chaplinesque veterans, complete with exaggerated gestures and slapstick plot devices. Particular kudos to Church here, who ladles out the sight gags with fearless good humor.

But it's Shea who channels Chaplin most strikingly; Arnolphe's crestfallen heartbreak as the young lovers grow closer is as full of pathos as anything the silent-film master produced.

This is impressive stuff, clever without being precious, each detail contributing to and in keeping with the whole. The rhyming verse, a 2000 translation by Pulitzer-winning poet Richard Wilbur, is lyrical and modern. And, most importantly, this adaptation never loses sight of what every audience member wants - a truly fun night out that just happens to make you think. School For Wives delivers, and then some. Yet another 2nd Story production that's not to be missed.

2nd Story Theatre's current production of Molière's School for Wives, a riotous romp about love and marriage from the French master of farce, boasts endless laughs, ingenious stage direction and a trio of outstanding performances.

School for Wives was written in 1662 and its storyline is quintessential Molière. The scandalous playwright is known for crafting characters that are hilariously self-centered and behave so accordingly, to the point of absurdity.

In this work translated by Richard Wilbur, the leading man, Arnolphe (Artistic Director Ed Shea), is afraid he will fall victim to an unfaithful wife and become known as a cuckold. To prevent such an outrageous occurrence, Arnolphe has devised a formula he believes will result in the perfect bride.

Enter Agnes (Gabby Sherba), an innocent young girl, raised in a convent and further sheltered from society under Arnolphe's roof, where servants Alain (Tom Roberts) and Georgette (Paula Faber) are ordered to keep her from having any contact with the outside world. The extreme measures taken to keep her "simple and ignorant" have been seemingly thwarted by Horace (Jeff Church), the son of Oronte (Eric Behr), one of Arnolphe's longtime friends.

Much to Arnolphe's surprise and chagrin, the young couple has not only become well acquainted and fallen in love with each other, but Horace also intends to marry her.

A man's quest to invent an ideal woman who embodies loyalty, obedience and therefore "knows her place," is a resounding theme both in history, as well as the arts. Such an idea is so preposterous, especially today, that Arnolphe's paranoia and resulting antics are uproariously funny rather than cause for concern.

Shea is mesmerizing as Arnolphe, the distressed bachelor whose unseemly thoughts and actions provide the lion's share of laughs during the production. With dialogue written in rhyming verse, the actor couples the most telling of expressions with purposeful inflection which makes for a truly unforgettable performance. If only he would grace the 2nd Story Theatre stage more often with his presence.

Early on, Arnolphe's disposition could easily be dismissed as the doltish plight of a lonely, desperate middle-aged man, but once he learns Agnes wants to be with Horace, jealousy rears its sinister, ugly head. All the while, Agnes and Horace maintain their carefree innocence and remain confident their love for each other will prevail.

Sherba is a delight as the presumably helpless yet hopeful damsel who gets tangled in Arnolphe's web of deceit. When she first appears on stage, singing quietly to herself from a window up above, the audience is instantly smitten. The actress effectively portrays a young girl who is inexperienced yet well enough aware to recognize her feelings for Horace. Church's heartfelt performance as Horace is just as impressive, complete with the customary exuberance of a young fellow determined to marry the girl of his dreams.

In addition to the witty dialogue, abundant laughs and stellar performances, directors Shea and Pat Hegnauer use strobe lights between scenes to create the clever effect of a silent film sequence.

School for Wives makes for yet another not-to-be-missed event at 2nd Story Theatre.

Molière is certainly the master of French farce.

His delightfully satiric, rhyming play, "School For Wives" is a director's dream, having been performed by just about any professional and non-professional theatre worth its salt.

But never has it been performed like 2nd Story!

Director Ed Shea, with help from Pat Hagnauer, has taken the 17th century play, adapted by Richard Wilbur, and added a few adaptations of his own.

Ed Shea has taken the usually the "dandy" character of Arnolphe, the insecure, wealthy, jealous, sexist, tyrant of a man and given him a complete makeover.

Dressed in black, with gloves, bowler hat and cane, Shea's Arnolphe is quick with the tongue, outwardly brash, and ready to be challenged hard by his own actions.

Keep your eye on him as he reacts to adversity with body language, facial expressions, and an acerbic mouth that won't quit.

Molière wrote the comedy in rhyme, and I've watched endless actors recite it monotonously.

Shea makes the rhythmic dialogue his own, often pausing before the final two or three words, resulting in a classic bit of satiric comedy.

The story is simple. Arnolphe has raised the beautiful young Agnes to be his wife. He has shed her from the real world, keeping her naïve, innocent, and, he thinks, dumb.

Along comes the young Horace, who takes a liking to Agnes. The feeling is mutual, growing into love during Arnophe's brief absence.

Horace believes Arnolphe to be someone else, and confides his feelings and actions to him. Things get a bit out of hand, and eventually Arnolphe gets what he deserves in Molière's quickly wrapped up ending.

Gabby Sherba returns to 2nd Story as Agnes. You will love her. You'll also love the way Jeff Church interprets the role of Horace. Shea has discovered two excellent young actors here.

So what makes this "School For Wives" rise above the rest?

First and foremost, Ed Shea. He has invented his own very unique Arnolphe, finding a deep dimension in the usually buffoonish character.

Shea has perfect comic timing, sharing it with his two servants (Tom Roberts and Paula Faber), who play off him with equal precision. And they are hysterically funny.

Roberts also opens the show with the customary "rules" about cell phones and exits, doing it in a Molière-style rhyme. It's a riot, and sets the tone for the play.

The play is often done on a big stage with elaborate costumes and sets, and many scene changes.

Shea and Hegnauer have used two clever devices to keep the play moving under its customary two hour running time.

The first is strobe lights, and the second is a revolving door that brings characters in and out with perfect timing and effectiveness. You have to see it to appreciate it.

Molière was the social commentator of his time. His ridiculing of the sexist male and the social customs of his era still have relevance today.

With this fresh interpretation of the play and its characters, 2nd Story has taken "School For Wives" to new heights.

Don't miss it!

Warren's 2nd Story Theatre is in the middle of a season of comedy. This time they've reached back 350 years to the French playwright Molière and his "School for Wives." Bill Gale says the return to the classroom is well worth it.

As with Shakespeare, the plays of Molière can be given all kinds of "treatments" by theater directors; the result can be disaster.

But when a director respects Molière's divine 17th Century ability to parse the world's foolishness by looking carefully at human passion, and its excesses, then theatrical art as good as it gets is possible.

Happily that's the case at 2nd Story where directors Pat Hegnauer and Ed Shea have reached into early 20th century film-making including Charlie Chaplin. They have made Molière's most incisive comedy, "School for Wives" into a high-speed romp that is vibrant, incisive, witty and forceful. This is Molière writ large with intelligence and drive, one of the funniest and most thoughtful comedies around here in years.

A quick rundown of the plot will tell you that one M. Arnolphe, a successful man of the world, has decided that what he really needs is a wife who is both naïve and submissive. A "good and modest ignorance" is what he likes in a woman. Therefore, his ward is to become his bride. She's a girl his household has taken in and raised simply. Can a middle-aged guy get away with this? Well, Richard Wilbur's lyrical, rhyming translation has Arnolphe say: "I know that women can be deep and clever. But I will be safe forever."

Oh, sure, Arne. Good luck with that.

"School for Wives" then sweeps through the adventures of a young suitor pursuing the girl; of Arnolphe's attempts to do him in thereby insuring his own inevitable and complete defeat.

But you cannot do "School for Wives" without a top flight actor as Arnolphe. Director Ed Shea has made a wise choice for the role - himself. Hegnauer was brought in, presumably, to keep an objective eye on the overall production. Shea, though, is a wonder all by himself. Chaplin-esque, in bowler hat, with cane, he manages a limp-wristed bewilderment sometimes, a sharp-eyed drive others. For some reason, he affects a Brooklyn-like accent. "Nurtured" becomes "Noittured" and so on. But that works, too, and his Arnolphe is eventually both a hard-hearted man and a victim.

Gabby Sherba plays the young girl with virginal innocence and a growing realization that she must become herself. Tom Roberts and Paula Faber are quicksilver good as Arnolphe's much put-down servants and all the cast does well with Wilber's glorious translation.

Near the end, one moment catches the excellence of this production. Arnolphe launches into a final try to explain his woe-begotten attempt at marriage. Shea stands next to the audience and speaks directly to the women there. Carefully, soulfully he explains the weakness of the female sex. Then, he asks with complete sincerity, why-oh-why, then, do men try so hard to please these "creatures?"

It's a moment in which Molière, and this actor, combine across the centuries to show us the complexity of human relations; how the brightest among us can be without a clue. "School for Wives" has a lot to teach us all. The question is the same as it was 350 years ago: Can we learn?

A two-thumbs-up recommendation for a play written in the 17th century, in French, all in rhyme, might be met with skepticism - except when the playwright is Molière and the producer is 2nd Story Theatre.

Molière, the master of farce, has been making people laugh for three and a half centuries, and 2nd Story has a track record for energizing period pieces while preserving a sense of a different time and place.

Together, they make great theater and a good time out of the playwright's comedy of errors "School for Wives."

Molière's signature style is to skewer humanity's less honorable personality traits by creating characters that embody them. In this case, the wealthy Arnolphe is obsessed by the fear that any woman he marries will cheat on him - make him a cuckold, to use the word from the play.

He claims to have seen it happen to many men, and he's smugly made so much fun of them that he couldn't endure the humiliation of coming to the same fate. His solution: marry his ward, Agnes, a purposely uneducated young woman who, he assumes, will be so dependant on him that she will never stray.

"Brightness" in a woman, Arnolphe says, "as a rule is a bad omen."

But Arnolphe wasn't counting on Agnes' innate intelligence - or the attraction she has for young Horace, the son of Arnolphe's longtime friend.

The two young people fall in love at first sight, and because neither knows of Arnolphe's plan, end up confiding in the very man who would keep them apart.

Arnolphe, aghast to see monkey wrench of true love thrown into his master plan, uses all this inadvertent insider information in hilarious attempts to thwart the young loversm, recruiting his hapless servants as his assistants.

Just how Arnolphe's machinations are undone by innocence points out the futility of his obsession; the story, moreover, ends with a wonderful irony. To explain too much would take away all the fun, but be assured, it is a lot of fun.

The play has been translated by Richard Wilbur, an American, so his language sounds familiar. But it still rhymes - a writing feat in itself, carried out by the perfect phrasing of members of the 2nd Story cast who make it sound natural to speak that way.

Instead of setting the play in the 1600s, director Ed Shea has given his production the feel of a silent movie. The gents wear spats and bowler hats, except for young Horace who sports knickers and a cap.

Shea has cast himself as Arnolphe and plays him with Charlie Chaplin-esque gestures. Pantomimes that tell segments of the story are performed under strobe lights to re-create a flickering screen image, and emotions - surprise, dismay, infatuation, horror - are writ large on the characters' faces and in their body language.

The concept clearly was thought though to the last detail, and it works like a charm.

There is very little scenery except for a Punch-and-Judy set of windows in Arnolphe's house, put to good use by servants Alain and Georgette, and a revolving door - a re-thinking of the slamming doors so often used for abrupt exits and entrances in farcical productions.

The result, reinforced by spotlight-bright lighting, is that the audiences' attention focuses on the actors - and they are wonderful. Shea is self-satisfaction incarnate as Arnolphe and at his funniest feigning interest in the young lovers' romance while plotting its demise.

Gabby Sherba poises her Agnes perfectly between being sweetly innocent yet smart enough to see through Arnolphe, and as Horace, Jeff Church is all youthful enthusiasm and heartfelt passion.

Tom Roberts and Paula Faber make the most of their roles as servants Alain and Georgette, whether bickering or sharing private glee over a chance to berate their master.

Even the smallest roles, like Arnolphe's friend Chrysalde, played by Rendueles Villalba, and his legal advisor, played by F. William Oakes, are remembered because they are presented so vividly.

Wives - and husbands - will be glad to go to this "School."

Rather than write yet another review where I either compliment or criticize the same round of actors, I thought I'd take up this space to rhapsodize briefly about what has become my favorite theater, hands down, in the state.

2nd Story Theatre, a friendly little two-story theater off Main Street in Warren, is simply leaving every other in the dust right now. No other thespian establishment has consistently reached, show after show, that perfect combination of funny, adept, inspired, affordable, smart and down-to-earth and approachable as 2nd Story. From "The Foreigner" to "Kimberly Akimbo " to "To Kill a Mockingbird" to "Comic Potential," they've hit the nail on the head so many times recently, dramatically speaking, that I've practically lost track. Their plays are like that brilliant blooming flower in spring or bright red leaf in fall: seize them while you can, for they're all runaway hits, made to be savored and swallowed so you're ever hungrier for the next tasty offering.

How do they do it? Their selections are unusual and diverse, from different eras, countries and genres. The same can be said for their actors, ranging from children to teenagers to middle-aged to elderly.

Let's talk, for instance, of the current production, Molière's "School for Wives," from what you would think would be the provincial dark ages of seventeenth century France. It's not. 2nd Story dusts off this play from 1662, that was adapted into modern American English by Richard Wilbur, who was at one time, the U.S. Poet Laureate.

They do such a fun, faultless job. The director incorporates strobe lighting to mimic the old black and white silent movies, and a revolving door to keep the action taut and fast. The actors are lively young talents with a lot of pep. You feel downright lucky for getting a seat at all. The Sunday afternoon performance I caught was sold out and you could feel the excitement waiting in line, a sensation you usually have to go to Boston or New York to experience. (No bored, seen-it-all-before-audiences that you sometimes see at Trinity Rep or PPAC.)

The great contradiction of "School for Wives," for me, at least, was that it's a play about the triumph of honesty, innocence and integrity and (shall I say the somewhat dirty word of feminism?), but it's still lots of fun and even downright silly!

What writers Molière and Wilbur were!; (Molière in French, and Wilbur in English.) Molière has a bounty of sophisticated humor and beautiful lines at his disposal. He mocks arrogant dumb men who incessantly underestimate women. Miraculously, Wilbur stays true to Molière's rhyme form, but still nails each sentiment and the story's sense of humor. Both can turn a poetic phrase for the love-eyed Agnes as easily as a manly jousting between Arnolphe and Horace, who are battling for her affections.

And I haven't even mentioned that the entire thing, including the preface about turning off your cell phones and finding the emergency exits that actor Tom Roberts gives, is in rhyme. I just sat there marveling at how such a potentially moral story line in such a strict literary form could hardly be more joyous or rambunctious.

The actors to carry out the plot, namely Gabby Sherba and Jeff Church playing the young lovers Agnes and Horace, hit the perfect pitch of guileless sweet innocence. Though that probably sounds painfully nice, they're actually so unusually sincere, they're rather breathtaking performers. They know how to give every line all they've got - they certainly aren't holding back - but their pots, as it were, never boil over into farce or unrestrained over-acting. How do they do it?

Then, they top it all of with the Maurice Chevalier song "Thank Heaven for Little Girls," from the musical Gigi, the perfect laugh-out-loud silly macho song to complement this feminist play. Maybe our current media culture, that enjoys pitting Sarah Palin, for example, against women, (or men...or both!) doesn't get it, but 2nd Story totally does: Feminism is just another form of humanism, a heartfelt smart reality that everyone deserves to participate in and even enjoy.

I was again enraptured after the show as I watched Ed Shea, the theater's artistic director, who was also the male lead as the foolish anti-female Arnolphe, chat casually about the show with 2nd Story's resident scholar, Eileen Warburton. The friendly transparency with which Shea humorously describes how he comes up with his vision for his characters and direction reminds me of the best of Charlie Rose or "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer."

This theater couldn't be more unpretentious or more on the ball than it is. It's like the PBS of Rhode Island. What a treasure. We already know we love it. Let's watch it. Let's - as 2nd Story advises - "tell four friends". Let's support it.

We're told everything we need to know about 'School for Wives' in the first two minutes: Arnolphe, wealthy and privileged, has one bee in his bonnet: cuckoldry and how to avoid it. He's known for tearing into the menfolk in town for their weakness and inability to control their wives dalliances. He is upbraided by the mildly pious Chrysalde not to be the first to cast stones lest he grow himself a pair of fine horns and be subject to an exponentially worse karmic backlash.

This is as scripted. Co-directors Ed Shea and Pat Hegnauer, however, have chosen to start with a furiously clever opening sequence in which the Punch and Judy servants Alain and Georgette (played with a wonderfully manic insouciance by Tom Roberts and Paula Faber, respectively) deliver the standard audience instructions in rhyming verse. In ghostly pancake and rouge, they serve as chorus and jester at once - servile yet rebellious. Today, Molière...yesterday, Shakespeare...it's all the same as long as they get paid. Following this brilliant prologue, we're greeted by the ethereally beautiful Agnes, chirping the achingly familiar melody of "Plaisir d'amour" from her balcony in the moonlight. It's a foregone conclusion before the play proper has even started that she can't help falling in love with love itself and Arnolphe's paranoia is to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The overwhelming success of 2nd Story's treatment is in not succumbing to incessant business and slapstick to either supplement the verse or mask an inability to embrace it. There is more than enough physicality, all of it perfectly choreographed, but never at the expense of the text. Molière has created enough business with the words alone. The job of this cast is to get out of the way of the script and let it work for them. Indeed, the first scene of interplay is part speechifying, part goading and while Rendueles Villalba's Chrysalde plays his twofold part somewhat on the simple side, Ed Shea's masterful turn as a Bronx-toned Chaplin carries the burden for the both of them. Shea spends the lion's share of two hours chewing on generous mouthfuls of couplets and spewing them back out as something else entirely. Contemporary, yet classic, his treatment of Arnolphe dives in and out of two worlds. He knows the rules well enough to be able to break them at will just long enough to call attention to the fact that we are listening to 17th Century poetry, not outtakes from the Bowery Boys. And we're only ever pulled into serious flights of fancy long enough for Shea to burst the bubble with an unscripted aside both profane and perfect.

As the ingénues of the piece, Gabby Sherba's Agnes and Jeff Church's Horace seem drawn to order. Church, in particular, displays a physical and verbal dexterity that belies his youth. Sherba, especially, sets us up to believe she may actually be as simple as her master would wish only to revolt when pushed past the breaking point, reducing Arnolphe into the quivering jellyfish he publicly excoriates. Worth mentioning also is William Oakes who burns fast and bright as the pedantic Notary, drawn into service long enough by Arnolphe to be annoyed to distraction as we delight in wondering which of the two is more oblivious of the other.

Trevor Elliot's utilitarian set showcases the revolving chain of events in literal fashion. The almost bleak, shadowy stonework spins and shifts to quickly take everyone either inside or out in the blink of an eye. There is a dark underbelly to all of this playful jesting and the set captures the undercurrent perfectly. While we laugh with Arnolphe just as often as we laugh at him, we're reminded of cruelty that he brushes aside as inconsequential - kicked cats, willful subjection of his dependents and deliberate withholding of education - all to serve his own ends or as effects of his temper. And it is testament to Molières crafting of his protagonist and Shea's forceful possession that we dare to pity Arnolphe from time to time. We nod in agreement with the cries of his victims, but cheer along with him whenever fate gives Arnolphe just enough rope to hang himself.

We are manipulated by the players and the play into uncomfortable laughter more often than we should be ok with. The twisted, seeming corpse of Horace is almost horrible (in a 'Family Guy' sort of way) yet we check our discomfort in knowing that it came as the result of a beating delivered via the wildly clever device of a strobe-lit Silent Movie pantomime (used to great effect throughout - the sound of old movie reels helping to trick the mind into seeing live action as grainy dual dimension). The perfectly imperfect costumes of Alain and Georgette along with their haunted visages keep us wondering what horrors they endure daily, yet partake of just as willingly. The doomed denizens of Castle Frank N Furter would seem natural extensions in the centuries to come.

It's tempting to respond to it all in verse, yet underneath the frivolity, is indeed some nasty business. It takes a rather dull sense of humor to be truly offended by any of Molières thinly veiled attacks on current sensibilities, but one look at a Waldorf school or an Amish community will remind us that there are those who hold steadfast to the belief that simplicity is still a high virtue.

And indeed it is, especially when the twisted and complex iniquities of mankind can be distilled into the purest, simplest form of all - laughter. Ed Shea and company have managed to take all of the complicated elements and make it seem so simple. But beware of who and what you're laughing at. It just may turn out to be you.

The second show of 2nd Story Theatre's season is Molière's "School for Wives" which is a theatrical comedy of errors and self delusion written by the seventeenth century French playwright, Molière and revolves around an insecure man who wishes to show the world how to avoid the fate of cuckoldry by marrying the perfect bride. Arnolphe is a 52 year old man who has groomed the young Agnes since the age of 4. He supports Agnes living in a convent until the age of 17, when he removes her and moves her to one of his homes. Arnolphe wants to bring her up in a manner that she will be too innocent of being unfaithful to him. In order to do this, he forbids the nuns who are instructing her from teaching her anything that might lead her astray. His friend, a monsignor, Chrysalde warns Arnolphe of his folly at such a task. After the girl moves into his house, Horace arrives on the scene ahead of his father and Arnolphe's friend, Oronte, and proceeds to fall in love with Agnes and she with him. Horace unwittingly confides all his activities with Agnes to Arnolphe. Arnolphe then schemes in order to out-maneuver Horace and ensure that Agnes will marry him. Through many twists and turns of the story with misunderstandings, mistaken identities the conclusion is reached. Richard Wilbur's translation perfectly captures the joyous theatricality of Molière's comedies as fresh today as when they were first written: the appeal of the battle of wits, rhyming verse, mercurial shifts from sacred to profane, soaring poetry and base humor. Co-directors Ed Shea and Pat Hegnauer do a brilliant job with their hard working cast, with Ed doing double duty as Arnolphe. He takes charge of the stage, bringing his talent and the talent of his 9 fellow performers to new heights. The show is rewarded with a thunderous standing ovation at curtain call.

The satire directed by Pat and Ed has wonderful pacing and is full of witticisms and shtick that keep the audience entertained all night long. The gorgeous 1920's costumes are by Alison Walker Carrier. The revolving door front door, the upstairs balcony with windows and other doorway that turns inside out( to take the characters in and out of the house with ease) are designed by Trevor Eliot. Operations manager Max Ponticelli and his hard working crew of Liz Hallenback, Evan Kinnane and Brian Hebert keep the set changes running smoothly all night long. The last Molière show at 2nd Story, "The Misanthrope" in 2006 was set in the Civil War with a Gone with the Wind theme to it. This time the show is set in the 1920's and has some silent movie moments in it that are hilarious with a strobe light making it look like a black and white movie. Ed is dressed like Charlie Chaplin and is onstage almost the whole two hour show. Ed delivers a stunning, tour-de-force performance in this show. Molière gives the protagonist in his shows, one dominating obsessive character trait. Ed delivers his multitude of lines and numerous monologues splendidly while interacting with the audience, including them in the witticisms of the character. His interactions with the other characters is topnotch, too. The physical humor is outstanding in this farce.

Sexy raven haired Gabby Sherba plays Agnes. She is fabulous in this role capturing the innocence of the convent trained girl and is hilarious during the twists and turns of the storyline. Agnes' naïveté is what perplexes Arnolphe and when she finally stands up to his bullying the audience gasps and applauds her. Gabby also shows off her beautiful singing voice in this role. She plays this docile creature who finally comes into her own at last where Agnes resents being simple minded. Tall blond and handsome Jeff Church plays Horace. He is marvelous as the zealous lover of this gorgeous girl. Jeff has many comic lines and makes them all count including calling Arnolphe, la douche at one point. He has many physical comic moments where he is beaten up and has to do a flip as he is pulled from a ladder. Jeff proves he is adept at comedy in this show having previously played the villain in "The Late Christopher Bean" during the summer at 2nd Story. The wild and crazy servants are well played by Paula Faber and Tom Roberts. They constantly bicker with each other and have some outstanding comic moments where they fight to answer the door, play dummies as they gaze out the windows at Arnolphe and at one point beat the crap out of him while he pretends to be Horace. Rendueles Villalba, Walter Cotter and Eric Behr play three friends of Arnolphe's who add to the merriment of the show while Bill Oakes is the notary. A secret is discovered later in the show that resolves the situation for the audience. Not wanting to spoil the fun of the show, I can't go into anymore detail of it.

So for a hilarious evening of comedy, be sure to catch "The School for Wives" at 2nd Story Theatre.