Oh, those Frenchies. From "Tartuffe" to "La Cage aux Folles," the French theater has spelled out a theme you might call, frailty, thy name is . . . humanity.

And you can certainly see that made plain at 2nd Story these nights. Director Ed Shea has chosen two short works from the later 1600s. Both go gangbusters after very different targets, namely doctors and the medical profession, and lawyers and the legal profession.

And the surprising thing is that while the trappings and the attack are different, the conclusion is the same. We are all driven by our needs.

On the relatively bare and very simply lit stage area at Bristol's Statehouse the fun starts with Moliere's "The Doctor In Spite of Himself." The trick here is that a country bumpkin is taken by his gullible neighbors to be a physician. Not as dumb as he looks, the hayseed, played vibrantly by Jim Sullivan, knows a good deal when he sees it.

There ensues a veritable volley of rumps kicked, breasts fondled, and money exchanged.

What's new about this old work is that 2nd Story has chosen to give these French folk American "hillbilly" accents. Sounds very strange, I know. But somehow it works. When the bumpkin figures out what's going on and makes his move he asks something like: "Ah can git any fee ah like? Then I am a doctor."

Moliere's comedy is sometimes said to be just that - only an excuse for major fun. But 2nd Story's sly raucousness gives it more. There's a lesson to be learned.

The second offering is by Jean Racine, a 16th century author best known for his tragedies. In fact, he wrote only one comedy. But it's a pretty good one, perhaps because it's based on a Greek satire by the great Aristophanes.

Sometimes called "The Litigants," it is here named "The Suitors." But either way it's a scathing look at the legal profession and its practitioners. Shea's direction continues its rapscallion romp. As lawyers prepare writs and are ripped, a judge goes cuckoo, and a sweet little dog goes on trial for killing a capon.

The translation from the French by the brilliant Richard Wilbur is in rhyme. One line goes something like this as a wealthy matron laments to an attorney: "I live in accord to my station. But what is life, sir, without litigation." That line belongs to a very funny Paula Faber. Other 2nd Story regulars, Tom Roberts, F. William Oakes, Dillon Medina, Liz Hallenbeck and others are equally up to their tasks.

"The Suitors" perhaps lacks the reckless drive of Moliere's work. It's more cautious, and so less amusing. But if you give these plays just a little air, cooperate with their idiosyncrasies, you are going to have a good time.

After all, once again these ancient French works show us, through comedy, the frailties of, well, of all of us.

How generous. With its latest production, 2nd Story Theatre is giving us a hilarious double feature. And a double dose of schadenfreude: both a doctor and a lawyer, each a paragon of discredit to their profession, get raked over the coals. Plus it's patriotic: what's more American than making fun of the French?

Molière's The Doctor In Spite of Himself and Jean Racine's less frequently seen The Suitors are running through December 18. The comedies premiered within a couple of years of each other, in the 1660s. Note that they're in the Bristol County Courthouse, as befits the latter play, instead of their Warren digs.

In The Doctor In Spite of Himself, Molière had the good sense to not lambaste a real doctor, which would have been like preaching that Satan was a bad guy. No, he presents an ordinary man, a clever woodcutter, who pretends to be a physician, bluffing his way out of blunders and misdiagnoses. His patients are what get made fun of - as well as their gullible faith in 17th-century medicine.

Sganarelle (Jim Sullivan) changes careers when his wife Martine (Liz Hallenbeck) seeks revenge for his booting her about. Valet Valere (Jeff Church) and servant Lucas (F. William Oakes), sent by a wealthy bourgeois gentleman, Géronte (Tom O'Donnell), are searching for a doctor. Martine convinces them that her husband revived a woman six hours after she was proclaimed dead and so well repaired a boy who fell off a tower that he skipped away to play marbles. But he's eccentric, she says, so he might have to be thrashed about a bit until he admits who he is. They comply with gusto.

When Sganarelle realizes that there could be good money in this, he rubs his bruises and eagerly sets forth. He may get wrong on which side is the heart and which the liver, and his Latin may be medically suspect ("Veni, vidi, vici," "E pluribus unum"), but he loves the fact that doctors get paid whether they succeed or fail.

Standard conflicts ensue. Géronte wants his lovely daughter Lucinde (Erin Olson) to marry a wealthy man rather than poor Leandre (Dillon Medina), whom she loves, but eventually that's solved in a finger snap when Leandre comes into money. Also miraculously cured by the "doctor" is her inability to speak more than nonsense sounds, her trick for putting off other prospective suitors.

2nd Story packs a lot into 37 delirious minutes. All in all it's a giddy exercise that won't grow out of date while charlatans are abundant, credulous victims remain, and audiences exist to appreciate their interplay.

Jean Racine's The Suitors is the only comedy by the French dramatist who is known and appreciated for his tragedies. Since he was a master of the 12-syllable alexandrine verse in which his plays were written, translating them has been a devil of a job. But poet Richard Wilbur was up the task - for three Racine plays, actually - as he was for no less than 10 plays by Moliére.

This is no trifle that Racine tossed off to prove he could do it. It's a well-constructed foray into farce that doesn't drop a beat in this production while delivering some hilarious set pieces.

Again a father, Chicanneau (Oakes), wants to keep his beautiful daughter, Isabella (Olson), from marrying a poor beau, again named Leandre (Jeff Church). The young man's father, Nigaud (Tom Roberts), is a delightful side story. The addled old man, a retired judge, has become so addicted to passing judgment that at one point he brings his little doggie to trial for stealing a capon from the kitchen. He wants to do so day and night and therefore has to be locked up, lest he escape some night and pound on the courthouse door with his gavel. Roberts is a visual giggle in his grey fright wig and nightgown.

Trickery abounds. Leandre and the judge's clerk - Le Clerc (Medina), ha! - dress up as a magistrate and a bailiff to fool Chicanneau, who hoards money for future lawsuits, such as mutual suits for slander with a hearty countess (Paula Faber).

Two laff riots for the price of one. A Christmastime present from 2nd Story.

While Warren's 2nd Story Theatre is busy staging "Little Women" as its holiday offering at its Market Street performance space, it has also set up shop at the historic Bristol Statehouse with a couple of 17th-century French comedies that are short but sweet - a Moliere romp that takes a shot at the medical profession and a rare comedy by Racine that lampoons judges and lawsuit-happy clients.

Originally, director Ed Shea had intended to put on just the Racine, translated in catchy rhyming verse by Richard Wilbur. But after rehearsing "The Suitors" for a while it became obvious that it was a lot shorter than he expected - only about 45 minutes. So, Shea scrambled to find a companion play to fill out the evening, and came up with Moliere's "A Doctor In Spite of Himself." It stars a goofy Jim Sullivan as the simple-minded, alcoholic woodcutter who is mistaken for a doctor, thanks to the trickery of wife Martine, who is out to get even with him for a beating she received. She tells all the world her husband is a brilliant, if eccentric, physician.

At first Sullivan's Sganarelle rebuffs pleas from the servants of a rich man to cure his daughter, who has become a mute. But it doesn't take him long to figure out the muteness is just an excuse so she won't have to go through with an arranged marriage to a man she laothes.

Besides, Sganarelle comes to realize that whether he does any good doesn't matter; he'll still get paid.

It's a light, silly piece that doesn't really go anywhere. But while it lasts, it's pretty amusing, especially with a translation that sounds more like a script from "The Beverly Hillbillies."

It's also a bit bawdy, with Sullivan doing an awful lot of groping when it comes to Paula Faber's fetching nurse Jacqueline. Great Moliere is not, however.

The Racine is about the same length, but a bit meatier, with zany Tom Roberts as a dotty judge in a frizzy wig that makes him look more like an unshorn poodle than a jurist. Roberts, who plays Judge Nigaud, has lost it, struck his gavel one too many times. And now son Leandre is trying to keep him from going to work and instead have him rule over household matters. Nigaud's bit case: The family dog ran off with a capon.

But at least this play has an intriguing subplot. Leandre is in love with his neighbor Isabelle, who is kept prisoner but her lawsuit-happy father, Chicanneau, who spends all his money on legal matters. Midway through the play, Leandre and Le Clerc, the judge's clerk, carry out an elaborate hoax on Chicanneau, played by a maniacal F. William Oakes, and things take a turn for the better.

The casts are essentially the same for the two shows, with the addition of Sullivan, who is a hoot, for the Moliere.

In the past, I'm sure Shead would have left the historic courtroom in the old statehouse untouched. But now that he's into sets this season, he has guissed it up with faux fieldstone on the benches and the façade of a house, with balcony, in the background. Roberts is forever poking his fuzzy head out one of the windows.

The two shows make for an amusing evening of theatre, it's just that they're both really light and a bit thin.