The loopy sweetness and eccentricity of Marivaux's The Triumph Of Love may account for this 18th-Century comedy's recent popularity. Ignored here for more than two centuries, The Triumph of Love had its first English-language production in Canada and a movie with Mira Sorvino and Ben Kingsley, both in 2001. A Broadway musical version with Betty Buckley and F. Murray Abraham in 1997 followed the straight play to New York, after which there was a production in Central Park and many around the US.
This 2004 Triumph Of Love is Stratford's first Marivaux, translated by associate-director John Van Burek, the director/translator of that first Canadian production. Reportedly less elegant, Stratford's artistic director Richard Monette's direction does seem a little too boisterous for Marivaux's uniquely gentle wit. But it's funny and entirely entertaining.
The fantasy-plot involves beautiful princess Leonide who wants to return her throne to its rightful, deposed heir, young Agis. Disguised as a young man, Phocion, Leonide spots Agis and immediately falls in love with him, determining to win him as her husband while crowning him ruler. Agis is orphaned and brought up by the philosopher Hermocrate and his sister Leontine to avoid all emotion and develop the mind, like them. Beautiful and innocent, he is guarded by Hermocrate from outsiders and taught to fear Princess Leonide, whom Hermocrate believes to be plotting to find and kill Agis.
To gain access to Agis, Leonide has to play woman and man to seduce both Hermocrate and his sister Leontine. Both plan to drop their asceticism and run off to marry Leonide/Phocion. Cute, lonely Agis is an easy conquest.
Monette doesn't make the philosopher and his spinster sister caricatures enough for us to laugh without some discomfort at their being made butts of the joke. James Blendick is warm, smart and likable as Hermocrate; and Lucy Peacock's Leontine is dotty and goofy enough when she falls in love with this young "man" to not only make us laugh but also win our affection. Still, both show such liberation from their former restraints that their betrayal seems almost justified. More problematical are both Andy Velasquez's Harlequin and Jeffrey Renn's loud Dimas: their slapstick certainly gets laughs but seems too vulgar.
Claire Jullien is authoritative and properly in command at the happy ending, but seems tomboyish and awkward in some of her earlier romantic scenes. In the less demanding role of Corine, Brigit Wilson makes the switch from silly male to romantic female more easily. David Snelgrove is as plausible as Agis is likely to be. Overall, this handsomely produced comedy is good-natured and nonsensical enough to please a taste for light entertainment.
