Folger's 'School for Scandal': Give It a C

Folger Theatre's "School for Scandal" is kind of like a surprise party at which the guest of honor never shows.

Your eye alights expectantly on each new face to make an entrance in this typical Restoration confection by the 18th-century wit Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Soon enough, though, hope begins to dim, as the knowledge sinks in that the evening's eagerly awaited moment of jubilant discovery is never going to come.

Richard Clifford's production is a tediously gabby affair, with little of the polished effervescence required for ventures into a world of characters with names like Sir Benjamin Backbite and Lady Sneerwell. Despite, even, the presence of such walking comic insurance policies as David Sabin, Kate Eastwood Norris and Catherine Flye, the piece leaves a mushy sort of aftertaste.

Clifford, whose Folger résumé includes a successful "The Clandestine Marriage," a comedy from the same era, has taken certain liberties with Sheridan's work that don't appear to have been enhancements. For one thing, he transposes the events of "Scandal" from the 1770s to the 1890s, in honor of Oscar Wilde, whose poison-tipped farces and satires were no doubt influenced by this fellow Irish playwright who predated him by a century.

For another, the director has cast a man, Tom Story, as the duplicitous Lady Sneerwell, another homage to Wilde and, according to Clifford, the idea that even as a celebrity, Wilde led a sexually "hidden life." The capable Story -- so terrific in another Sheridan play, "The Rivals," at Shakespeare Theatre in 2003 -- finds little to excite him here. Sculpted blond wigs, kimonos and acres of black lace might be a delicious provocation to some actors. Yet this actor gives the impression of finding the adornments a confinement rather than a liberation, and so the charade comes across not as inspiration but old hat.

The plot spins like a dusty old 78. It has to do with a rich gentleman (Hugh Nees) returning to London in disguise after years abroad to determine which of his heirs, the profligate one (Clinton Brandhagen) or the truly dastardly one (Cody Nickell) should get his fortune. Another old rich guy (Sabin) is tethered miserably to a comely younger woman (Norris) whose devotion to her marriage vows extends only so far as her husband's checking account can take her.

Taking aim at these fops, gold-diggers and dandies, the other swells indulge their penchants for character assassination. Suffice to say that it's an awfully gassy ride from the first jape to the last.

As the singularly self-absorbed Lady Teazle, Norris gets some of the best lines, and delivers them with accustomed aplomb. Sabin, playing her husband as an old fool perpetually thrown for a loop, is allotted a goodly amount of time for carrying on, which he does with gusto.

No one else is in quite as genial a comedy as these two. For too much of the time on what should be an evening of carbonated fun, it feels as if someone has left the cap off.

The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Directed by Richard Clifford. Sets, Tony Cisek; costumes, Carol Bailey; lighting, Dan Covey; sound, Neil McFadden. With Nathaniel P. Claridad, David Marks, Theodore M. Snead, Shane Wallis, John Lescault, Steve Beall, Laura C. Harris. About 2 hours 45 minutes. Through June 15 at Folger Theatre, 201 East Capitol St. SE. Call 202-544-7077 or visit http://www.folger.edu/theatre.