A little Servant, a little Seattle: Cast Announced for The Doctor in Spite of Himself at Yale Rep

Steven Epp, Don Darryl Rivera, Allen Gilmore and Daniel Breaker in the Intiman Theatre production of Moliere’s A Doctor in Spite of Himself in September 2010. Epp (in the role of Sgaranelle played in Seattle by Breaker) and Gilmore are in the forthcoming Yale Repertory Theatre production of the show, Nov. 26-Dec. 17. Photo by Chris Bennion.

They’ve announced the cast for the next Yale Rep show, Moliere’s A Doctor in Spite of Himself, playing Nov. 26 through Dec. 17. The production brings back the director/star team of Christopher Bayes and Steven Epp, who oversaw the Rep’s hit rendition of Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters in February 2010. That previous show used a translation by Constance Congdon, and had connections to a Hartford Stage production in which Epp and Bayes both appeared in 1996.

Moliere and Goldoni lived a couple generations apart but are linked by the funnybone, both pushing the boundaries of, and transcending the traditional stage-comedy form known as commedia. All you need to know about A Doctor in Spite of Himself is that it makes fun of doctors the way that The Servant of Two Masters made of masters. Good timeless anti-authoritarian fun.

Several other veterans of the Rep’s Servant have returned to do A Doctor in Spite of Himself, which stars Epp in the title role of Sganarelle. Liam Craig, who was Brighella and Porter in Servant, will be Lucas and Thibault in Doctor. Allen Gilmore, who was Pantalone in the Goldoni play (and who played Argante in Christopher Bayes’ productionsof Moliere’s Scapin in both Chicago and Seattle in 2002) gets to play another comical dad character, Geronte, as well as Sganarelle’s neighbor Monsieur Robert.

There’s another reunion going on.

Epp—star of Servant of Two Masters and accomplished clown/actor who made his name with Minnesota’s Theatre de Jeune Lune (a troupe which visited Yale Rep twice in the 1990s)—will play the conniving woodcutter Sganarelle.

If you thought “naturally he will,” it might not have been a forgone conclusion. When Bayes and Epp’s adaptation of The Doctor in Spite of Himself played the Intiman Theatre in Seattle last year, it starred Daniel Breaker (whose Broadway roles include the Youth in Passing Strange and the Donkey in Shrek) as Sganarelle. Epp was in that cast as well, but he played the servant Lucas, which is now Liam Craig’s part. Besides Epp, Craig, and Gilmore, the Yale Rep Doctor of Spite of Himself also feature Renata Friedman returning to her Intiman role of Geronte’s daughter Lucinde.

Cast members unique to the Yale production are:
Lucas’ wife Jacqueline is played by Julie Briskman, who played Corinne to Christopher Bayes’ Harlequin in a 1993 production of The Triumph of Love at the Guthrie Theater (where she was a company member for seven years), has been working steadily in the Seattle regional theater realm for the past decade. Jacob Ming Trent, who did the succession of non-family roles in Eric Ting’s Long Wharf Theatre production of A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia, will be Valere. Justine Williams, who worked with director Bayes on the Glass Contraption show Clowns at the Public Theatre, is Martine and Perrin. Chivas Michael, who is in the recent BAM production of Brooklyn Omnibus (by Stew of Passing Strange/Negro Problem fame), plays Leandre.

Unlike the Epp/Bayes Servant of Two Masters, A Doctor in Spite of Himself will eschew the traditional proscenium of the Yale University Theatre for the more newfangled stage of the Yale Repertory Theatre. The design teams includes Matt Saunders, a third-year Scenic Design student who did the extraordinary multi-platformed environment for the School of Drama show Jib last year; costume designer Kristin Fiebig (who worked on the Yale Summer Cabaret’s As You Like It), Yi Zhao, whose knack for shadows was seen in Jib and the recent Yale Cabaret show hundredyearspacetrip; and sound designer Ken Goodwin. There’s also live music composed by Aaron Halva, also of the Intiman production of Doctor in Spite of Himself, and performed by Halva and Seattle-based musicians Greg Powers and Robertson Witmer.

Following the Yale Rep run, the Yale Rep’s A Doctor in Spite of Himself moves to Berkeley Repertory Theatre (where Epp has previously appeared in Moliere’s The Miser) for a Feb. 10-March 25 run.