E-Mail This Article to a Friend Hoarder in the court The ART gets serious about The Miser BY SALLY CRAGIN

If money makes the world go ’round, Harpagon, the skinflint at the center of Molière’s 1668 comedy The Miser, should be living on a carousel. Instead, this elderly tyrant resides in a dilapidated manse where "everyone’s a slave to his miserly ways," explains Karen MacDonald, who plays matchmaker Frosine in the American Repertory Theatre’s new production of the play. "The house isn’t in the best condition because he just wants to look at his money and not spend it."

Opening next Saturday, the production is a first-time collaboration between the ART and the Minneapolis-based Théâtre de la Jeune Lune, a repertory company that puts an emphasis on commedia dell’arte and circus traditions. Directed by Jeune Lune co-founder Dominique Serrand, the staging will feature five performers from that troupe, including co–artistic director Steven Epp in the title role. ART company members Will LeBow and Remo Airaldi join MacDonald in the show, which will also travel to Louisville and Minneapolis.

A native of France and a graduate of Paris’s École Jacques Lecoq, Serrand has directed numerous productions of Molière’s work. "I chose to do it," he says of The Miser, "knowing full well it was a comedy written after Don Juan and Tartuffe had been censored. So it’s a very charged play. At the time, he was very bitter and hurt by the censorship, and as a result, The Miser is quite a brutal and mean play. He’s attacking a very greedy world."

Although there’s plenty of action, the language of the play is freighted, even 300 years later. Serrand worked with translator David Ball to achieve an adaptation that would be true to Molière’s intention and also have a contemporary appeal. "We tried to keep the language as brutal today as it was at the time," he says, and Epp concurs. "It gets quite vulgar," the actor says with relish. "David has a creative and imaginative vocabulary of epithets."

For Epp, making Harpagon believable requires a delicate balance. "Because he’s based on Pantalone, the commedia character who’s always hoarding his money, there’s a certain credulity he has to have. There’s this stereotype — the crotchety, cranky old bastard. But you have to find this other side where he’s vulnerable and fragile."

Serrand was insistent that the current cast find the emotional depth Molière provided the original players, all of whom were his friends and co-workers. "The most amazing moments are when characters have a soliloquy and show how lost they are in the world they live in."

One of the more helpless characters is Valère, Harpagon’s servant, who has survived a shipwreck and is actually the scion of nobility, though he lives incognito. As portrayed by ART veteran LeBow, Valère has many uncomfortable moments. "I have to stand there and watch Harpagon abuse his daughter, the woman I’m in love with, and I’m not allowed to do anything. It’s a situation that gets progressively more difficult as the play goes on because Harpagon is about to marry his daughter to an old widower."

With Serrand at the helm, says LeBow, The Miser is funny but no farce. "If you’re doing it right, you can play it realistically, yet push it all the way to the extremes of the viciousness and even tragedy. And that helps the comedy, as opposed to just going for comedy."

The Miser is presented by the American Repertory Theatre and Théâtre de la Jeune Lune June 19 through July 18 at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street in Harvard Square. Tickets are $12 to $69; call (617) 547-8300.