Photos by Tim Fuller
Review Excerpts
“’COMEDIC APPROACH WORKS IN ‘SCHOOL FOR WIVES—TRANSLATION MAKES EVEN LAPSES IN SCRIPT ENJOYABLE”…Gisselman, artistic director of ATC, has placed the play comfortably within the commedia dell’arte style that dates to the 16th-century Italy. Moliere, like many of his 17th-century counter parts, was heavily influenced by commedia, as seen in his use of stock characters…. The story involves a jealous old fellow, Arnolphe, who is deathly afraid of having his wife cheat on him. So he trains his wife from the cradle, putting her in the care of nuns who promise to keep her stupid and innocent. When she’s ripe, Arnolphe will pluck her from her sheltered environment and make her his submissive and faithful wife. The old fool thinks he knows how to run a school for wives. But when his only pupil fails miserably, thanks entirely to his own methods, he is shattered. Something called real life gets in the way of his meticulous planning, and Agnes ends up falling for Horace, the son of Arnolphe’s best friend. Randall Duk Kim, acting in a distracting beard that bobs up and down with his chin, offers a sterling portrait of the pathetically misguided Arnolphe. Kim was never more genuine than when declaring Arnolphe’s deep feelings for his young charge. And his chorus of whines and moans was almost as funny as his silent, incredulous stares.”
–M. Scot Skinner, THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR (3/24/1991)
“’ZANY THEATRICS MARK ATC PRODUCTION OF ‘SCHOOL FOR WIVES’”…Nobody will call it great theater but the capacity audience at last night’s official opening performance had a great time. Pratfalls, silly gestures, exaggerated pronunciations of lines, a woman pulling a long carrot from her cleavage, all of it got great laughs…. There were several spontaneous outbursts of applause, however, following particularly intense bits of absurdity…. There are two people in the cast of eight…who don’t get to act ridiculous. The middle-aged Arnolphe, played by Randall Duk Kim, is one. Arnolphe’s sheltered ward Agnes, played by Rana Haugen, is the other. Kim gets his laughs portraying Arnolphe as a hopelessly out-of-touch 42-year-old bachelor who is reluctant to get married for fear that his wife will be unfaithful to him. Time and again, Arnolphe’s favorite retort and his best punch line is a yowl of indignation.”
–Chuck Graham, TUCSON CITIZEN (3/24/1991)
“’ATC HITS COMIC CLASSIC FULL FARCE’…Miss Saigon has an English actor playing a Eurasian role, a cause for much protest in New York. In School for Wives, Hawaiian-born Randall Duk Kim, of Chinese and Korean extraction, plays a Frenchman, although to no protest that I have heard….Credit for the success of the production can be divided between Kim, whose blustering Arnolphe is a dynamo of verbal energy, and director Gary Gisselman, who brings to life even throw-away lines with inventive bits of business….Arnolphe, the Pantaloon, has raised his young ward, Agnes–our Columbine, played by Rana Haugen–to be docile and ignorant. He intends to marry her and believes that if she is kept ‘simple,’ she will never cuckold him. Cuckoldry is his obsession and greatest fear. His plan goes awry with the entrance of our Harlequin, named Horace and played by Geoff Elliot. The rest of the play consists in machinations and counterplots, each misfired or backfired until Agnes ends up with the appropriate mate. Meanwhile, Arnolphe grabs his chest like Redd Foxx having ‘the big one’;…”
–Richard Nilsen, THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC (4/17/1991)
“‘CLASSIC ‘WIVES’ SHINES WITH NON-TRADITIONAL TWIST’…Rarely has such a timeless classic been given a treatment so humorous and contemporary–yet still so true to the period–than Arizona Theatre Company’s current production of Moliere’s ‘The School for Wives.’…From start to finish this play is a winner. Every member of the cast rises to his or her role, blooming under Gisselman’s direction….But all these magnificent performances must take second place to Kim’s perfect portrait of a sexist elitist hypocrite. His accent is thick, his laugh boisterous, his mastery of the verse dialogue complete, and his entire characterization believable. It is a joy to watch Kim work….”
–Christopher McPherson, THE PHOENIX GAZETTE (4/15/1991)
“‘ATC MAKE MOLIERE CLASSIC MUST-SEE’…The play is hilarious, the direction is flawless and the performers are great….Randall Duk Kim as Arnolphe is simply great. ATC patrons will remember his brilliant Prospero in ‘The Tempest.’ The man’s intensity is absolutely contagious. He plays his role as the self-deceiving master with a dynamic force that is both invigorating and exhausting. The play calls for direct interplay with the audience and he obviously loves every bit of it. Stage presence and charisma are all his….”
–Bob Matta, GREEN VALLEY NEWS AND SUN (1991)
“‘ATC GOES BACK TO SCHOOL FOR CLASSIC SUCCESS’…In fact, the whole production is a great illustration of why ‘the classics’ are ‘the classics’ and why a play like this one, in a production like this one, can be as fresh and funny as last night’s sitcom. (Funnier, actually considering the current state of sitcoms.) For director Gary Gisselman this marks the last production of his tenure as ATC artistic director (though he’s promised ot return as a guest director from time to time). After 11 years with the company, he’s leaving to return to theater in his native Minneapolis. How lovely that he can go out on the glory of such a strong, funny vehicle….Gisselman’s direction adeptly brings out both the slapstick comedy and the political nature of the play. In an age when women were expected to give up everything except submission to their husbands when they married, Moliere comes out squarely on the side of love, fun and the right of women to make their own choices (though he never puts it so stuffily). At the same time, he pokes wonderful fun at upstanding citizens like Arnolphe. No wonder the work was considered scandalous. There’s nothing subtle about any of the characters, and all the actors go for the laughs and play the comedy broadly. Randall Duk Kim is a hilarious Arnolphe, strutting like a bantam rooster in his finery and ranting on about how he will never allow himself to become a cuckold (the best course, then, is never to marry, his practical friend tells him.) Speaking in rhymed couplets for so long is in itself a formidable accomplishment; Kim makes it seem as if everybody talks this way….”
–Pauline B. Yearwood, SCOTTSDALE DAILY PROGRESS (1991)
“‘THE PERFECT SCHOOL’ When we first see Anrolphe, he looks something like an Easter egg with his yellow jacket, pantaloons and lavender sashes. No. He looks like a rooster, squawking and trying to stretch his diminutive stature the higher, his enormous hat like a crown of feathers. It is the day before his wedding, and he is by turns mocking the acquaintances who have been cuckolded and bragging of the stratagem that will allow him to avoid their ludicrous fate. We are, of course, at the start of Jean Baptiste Moliere’s The School for Wives and we know only too well that even while this rooster is strutting, the fox is creeping toward the hen house. And pretty soon, the fox is not only in the hen house, but also entertaining the hen with our rooster’s own money. Randall Duk Kim is spectacular as Arnolphe in Arizona Theatre Company’s first-rate production of the Moliere comedy, which opened in preview last Friday night. Although there are other characters–friends, two bumbling servants, the innocent wife-to=be, the man who eventually wins her, even a long lost relative from America–the play is entirely in Kim’s hands. And who would want it any other way? We know from the start the inevitable conclusion will involve the triumph of true love and the deliverance of comeuppance to the vainglorious. The real joy is watching Arnolphe attempt to forestall capricious Fate, and witnessing his transformation from rooster to deflated balloon as he careens around the stge, slowly losing air. Even the staff he affects begins to droop, like the tail of a whipped dog….Kim is a joy to watch at the center of this mad universe. His Arnolphe is a physical one, with an old man’s bowlegged walk, quavering voice and tendency to nap. When it looks as if Arnolphe will win his bride, Kim positively explodes and dances a victory jig, the way running backs used to dance in the end zone….”
–Anna Dooling, NEW TIMES (4/17-23/1991)
