There may have been moments in your high school or college career where, beleaguered with other work, tired, or simply fed up, you resorted to a quick plot summary rather than reading the required text. In fact, wearied by circuitous prose or florid diction, maybe you even sought out summaries on purpose. Either way, you’ve got a book report due, and it won’t write itself. Or will it? By taking this challenge to the stage in A Game of Love and Chance, American University’s Department of the Performing Arts excels in staging the messy, the inane, and the irreverent.
In his live adaptation of Pierre Marivaux’s 1730 comedy — a romantic farce presaging the French Revolution with wit and a healthy dash of historical irony — director Karl Kippola makes this production’s mission very clear: to the joy or injury of Marivaux, this rendition will completely elide the original script, leave actors’ roles up to chance, and thoroughly demolish the fourth wall. What results is a performance that revels in its own foolishness and lampoons the old stock of Marivaux’s model.
Set in the same milieu as its original, A Game of Love and Chance follows the aristocratic Orgon family — father, son, and daughter — as it plans to marry the latter off to Monsieur Dorante, whose arrival is imminent. Silvia implores her father to save her from the trappings of an arranged marriage, proposing that she and her maid, Lisette, trade places to avoid a confrontation. Minutes before her betrothed arrives, Monsieur Orgon relents — if only because he’s learned that Monsieur Dorante plans to carry out the same exact ruse with his valet, Harlequin. So begins Marivaux’s commedia dell’arte, and so too does Kippola’s adaptation, to an extent.
More reliant on instinct than realism, this production foregrounds a practice of improvisation and crowd work. Flexible and confident, improv suits Marivaux well, loosening up any formal strictures that distance contemporary audiences from his harebrained plot and giving Kippola’s cast generous permission to work and play.
Of course, with a double cast and roles chosen nightly by the audience, one might assume a certain gamble is at play here. The production’s collective talent begs to differ. Endeavoring toward a shared notion of a plot but foregrounding all the humor that comes in its making — and breaking — the communal act of storytelling really shines through. Granted such free reign, Kippola’s cast assembles a new farce within the old one, each fortified by the other. Thus, while you may see only a certain cast play certain characters on a certain performance of AU’s production of A Game of Love and Chance, it will also certainly be a night to remember.
From Jared Kirschenbaum’s winsome yet stoic Monsieur Orgon to Madison Gough’s rakish Mario, it is evident that this cast is prepared to immerse themselves in their characters, from their buckled heels up to their collarless coats. Sarah Bennett and Max Burchell prove a riot as the help-turned-masters of the Orgon and Durante estates. Reveling in their momentary privilege, Bennett and Burchell mount a rollicking burlesque of the bourgeoisie while nursing an immediate and bawdy infatuation between the two impish servants. (A favorite ad lib shared by the two is Burchell entering Bennett’s scene with the words “I am entering this room.”)
Tired of being rebuked and dismissed, Alyssa Nolan’s Silvia breaks through her ingénue caricature and refuses to be trampled on. Though a gradual learning curve, Silvia’s earnest nature eventually proves itself as more cunning and fiery than assumed. This break in the traditional hero/heroine dichotomy also affects Sophie Indiana Fischer’s Dorante, who, despite tribulations somewhat of his own making, emerges as a hapless and empathetic darling.
Each of these performances is rooted in a deep understanding of the play’s dramatic composition, its reception, and its role as a historical artifact. Cognizant of its place in the history of European comedy, Madison Troost, the production’s dramaturg, indeed manages to maintain the “truth of Marivaux’s play.” This truth carries on through the intricate costuming of Jillian Skara, whose work makes early modern aristocratic dress spry and sexy.
Held together by quips, bits, and double entendre, Kippola’s adaptation of A Game of Love and Chance is certainly an adaptation for a new generation of theatergoers as much as it is for familiar patrons. Relaxed and self-assured, it cuts through any potential discomfort of audience engagement, improvisation, and self-reference and delivers an inventive approach to adaptation in the modern era.
Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission.
A Game of Love and Chance plays through March 1, 2025, presented by the American University Department of Performing Arts performing at the Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave NW. For tickets ($10–$15, free for AU students), call (202) 885-3634 or order online. (The run is sold out.)
A Game of Love and Chance
An Improvised Adaptation of Pierre Marivaux’s Play
CAST A (02/26, 02/28, and 03/01 at 2pm)
Robin Kane
Margaret Lyda
Lucille Rieke
Vish Shukla
Madison Troost
Shelly Wiese
Mira Gross-Keck (u/s)
CAST 1 (02/25, 02/27, and 03/01 at 8pm)
Sarah Bennett
Max Burchell
Sophie Indiana Fischer
Madison Gough
Jared Kirschenbaum
Alyssa Nolan
Ollie Hunter (u/s)
CREATIVE AND PRODUCTION TEAM
Director: Karl Kippola
Intimacy Coordinator: Sierra Young
Scenic Designer: August Henney
Painting Lead: Brianne Anderson
Painting Lead: Liz Ashe
Costume Designer: Jillian Skara
Costume Shop Manager: Sydney Moore
Lighting Designer: Jason Zuckerman
Lighting Design Mentor: Jason Arnold
Lighting Electrician: Shannon Nichols
Lighting Electrician: Molly Jane Brennan
Sound Designer: Will Marley
Sound Designer Mentor: Niel McFadden
Assistant Director: Calvin Plante
Assistant Producer: Max Burchell
Dramaturg: Madison Troost
Stage Manager: Amelia Traylor
Assistant Stage Manager: Elizabeth Szymanski
Assistant Stage Manager: Isabel Manning
Stage Management Mentor: Martita Slaydon-Robinson
Wardrobe Run Crew: Ada Tasie
Theatre/Musical Theatre Program Director: Jason Arnold
Theatre/Musical Theatre Artistic Director: Aaron Posner
Theatre/Musical Theatre Grad Fellow: Josie Palmarini
