At Bas Bleu, The School for Lies is a linguistic tour de force

On Sept. 22, OnStage Colorado contributor Toni Tresca and I took a drive up to Fort Collins to catch the matinee performance of The School for Lies at Bas Bleu Theatre. This comedy by David Ives, directed by Steve Keim, was inspired by Molière’s The Misanthrope. What’s unusual about the show is that the entire script is written in rhyming couplets.

I’ve long considered Ives to be one of our most gifted playwrights when it comes to clever dialogue. Mostly known for his short plays like All in the Timing, Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread, The Universal Language and others, he’s done a number of adaptations — including The Liar, which the Arvada Center did in 2022 in a particularly memorable production.

Toni and I captured our thoughts in a conversation after seeing the show. Here’s what we had to say:

Alex: We just came out of The School for Lies by David Ives, directed by Steve Keim at Bas Bleu. What did you think, Toni?

Toni: I had a lot of fun. The fact that the whole thing was done in rhyming couplets is pretty amazing. It had some contemporary references but in an old-timey setting in 17^th Century Paris. It followed a group of courtiers fighting for the hand of Célimène, played by Julia Jones.

Alex: Right, it’s loosely based on “The Misanthrope” by Molière. It keeps the through-line of an outsider fed up with the lies and hypocrisy of society’s formalities but adds some more contemporary elements.

Toni: Jeffrey Bigger played the misanthrope, Frank, and he was great. I thought the whole cast was pretty solid.

Alex: Julia Jones was a lot of fun to watch. She really nailed the clever, flighty flirt, and she was adorable in that Marie Antoinette wig. I also really liked the butler to both Frank and Célimène, who turned out to be a twin at the end. Imagine that!

Toni: Yes, Sashko Conrad played both Dubois and Basque. He had a funny running gag with a tray of canapés that kept getting batted away.

Alex: It was a super fun part, or parts to play, and I loved at the end how he handled the request to have his brother come out at the same time.

Toni: The three suitors were appropriately sniveling clowns. These were Miles Horne, Dimitri Balasopoulov and Kaleb Hacker. Their costume design was a lot of fun, with bright, outrageous suits and mismatched wigs.

Frenemies Julia Jones and Kelly Foerster in ‘The School for Lies’ | Photo: Bill Cotton

Alex: Yes, Terri Gerrard did a great job with them. I’d have to say those design aspects were pretty impressive for a small theatre.

And so the other would-be romance is between Célimène’s cousin, Eliante (Elisabeth Sells) and Philinte (Brett Schreiber). They’re both strong in these roles, and Sells has a particularly saucy scene with Bigger.

Toni: It was quite the pretzel-y sex scene, and ridiculously funny.

Alex: And then Schreiber’s character has a crazy scene where he comes out dressed as the Queen of France, which comes in handy later in the play for a massive deception.

Alex: There’s all this stuff about a big lawsuit against Célimène, and Frank is being sued by Oronte for slander. So, a lot of it is fairly familiar farce territory with physical gags, double entendres galore and the like. What makes this show really stand out is the language — all those rhyming couplets.

Toni: David Ives is known for this kind of wordplay. I thought it was interesting how the couplets were sometimes started by one character and finished by another.

Alex: It takes a little time to get into the groove of listening to everything in rhymes, almost like watching Shakespeare.

Brett Schreiber (left) and Jeffrey Bigger in one of many compromising situations in ‘The School for Lies’ | Photo: Bill Cotton

Toni: The top of the show was the only area where I felt that the pacing was a bit off at the start. It could have been a little slower to allow for that adjustment period.

Alex: Plenty of kudos go to Keim for managing the madness and to the cast for mastering all those tricky lines.  Overall, it was a solid production with a lot of laughs. And it’s the kind of show that’s truly unique, so people going may well see something they haven’t seen before.

Toni: It’s also worth noting that the part of town where Bas Bleu is has been getting a bit built up, and there are some cool places for food and drink within walking distance from the theatre.