It is not only in soccer that a famous victory can be wrung from certain defeat. It happens in theatre too, as shown in this astonishing production, by the Romanian director Silviu Purcarete, of Molière's 1671 farce about a famous trickster.
At first, it looks as if we are in for a piece of lugubrious, high-concept Euro-theatre. Purcarete sets all the action inside a derelict cafe, meticulously designed by Helmut Stuermer, where dust rises from the piano keyboard and chairs are stacked in tottering piles. It all seems a far cry from Molière's Neapolitan commedia play about a wily servant who tricks money out of two foolish fathers opposed to their sons' choice of bride.
But the brilliance of Purcarete's concept gradually becomes clear: he treats Molière's play not as some febrile romp but as a philosophic human document. The key to Richard McCabe's Scapino lies in his statement that "the vulgar would call me a con man. I would call myself an artist." Suggesting Orson Welles as Prospero, McCabe pads about the stage like a retired magician making one last attempt to re-order life's chaos.
McCabe is one of our finest actors; and he and Purcarete imply this is a play that deals with the vindictive triumph of the artist. But, although the prevailing tone is one of exquisite melancholy, there are some genuinely funny moments. As one of the outraged fathers, Pip Donaghy relieves his vile temper by tearing chairs in half; as the other dad, Steven Beard signals his ferocious greed by piling his dinner-plate with enough food to satisfy a starving army.
There is good support from Stephen Ventura as a nervously thumb-sucking lover and from Alexia Healy as an omnivorous Gypsy bride, and Jeremy Sams's translation is sharp and clever. But the final credit belongs to Purcarete. He is not the first director to rescue Molière's play from rompishness: Jean-Louis Benoit's recent Comédie Française production had strange Beckettian overtones. What Purcarete makes us realise, however, is that in Scapino Molière offers us a moving portrait of the artist confronting his own mortality.
· In rep until September 9. Box office: 01243 781312.
