The School for Scandal @ Seattle Shakespeare Co.

The School for Scandal @ Seattle Shakespeare Company
Through July 1 // Seattle Center House // Tickets $28 adults/$22 seniors/$18 students

The Seattle Shakespeare Company is breaking out and kicking it up a notch with Sheridan's School for Scandal. It's not Shakespeare but it's funny and sharp-tongued, and the creative team (including Albert Clementi, sets; Heidi Ganser, costumes; Tim Wratten, lighting; M. Elizabeth Heller, sound) have come up with a production that just about knocks on Intiman's door. Director Rod Ceballos leads a superb cast, most of whom act like Sheridan's cutting, brisk comedy was what they were born to play -- which we imagine is thanks to Ceballos's insight into how this not-often-performed play works.

Scandal isn't what it used to be -- the play's weakest moments come when we're supposed to be shocked by outrageous behavior. (In the play's intro, the Stranger appears as a scandal sheet, but if you want shocking gossip, of course, you gotta be visiting the Slog.) What's strongest is the way Sheridan keeps it real while mining for yucks. There's a prodigal son-type, Charles Surface, (MJ Sieber) and he really is prodigal. He's a good guy, but he's terrible with money and he doesn't seem to care. His brother, Joseph Surface (John Bogar) is charming and well-thought-of -- he's playing the gossipy social game to win, but you also get a sense that it's hard work, all the same.

There's the older Sir Peter Teazle (Peter A. Jacobs) who has married a younger woman and he's not an idiot but the new Lady Teazle (Betsy Schwartz) has learned just how to work him. The non-gossiping Maria (Ellory Hartnett) has got a crush on bad-boy Charles, though Sir Peter is pushing Joseph. When a long-abroad rich uncle (Charles R. Leggett) shows up, ready to test his nephews (both prodigal and schemingly conventional), things proceed the opposite of swimmingly, thanks to Stephanie Shine's Lady Sneerwell, Peter Dylan O'Connor's Snake, Karen Nelsen's Lady Candour, among others. The on-the-nose names aside, these are all real, rich characters, and the actors go deep.

It's odd that the one thing that is scandalous isn't the focus of the play: the rampant anti-Semitism in English society at the time. There's a moneylender named Moses who is the occasion for all sorts of offhand, stinging comments about Jews and money and again there's a biting realism in the way the abuse never lets up when Moses is onstage. Is the play anti-Semitic? We don't think so. Moses is an honest businessman, so the vitriol comes across as another kind of talk that ruins reputations. And Sheridan points out that some "good Christians" lent money at interest, too -- not for themselves, of course, Christians didn't do that, but on behalf of a "friend" who could sell some stock.

Now, a link that answers your first question. Who the hell is Richard Sheridan?

Photo: Peter A. Jacobs and Betsy Schwartz in The School for Scandal, © John Ulman