The Would-Be Gentleman (adapted from Moliére's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Bobby Clark; produced by Michael Todd) was for 276 years a satiric comedy. Last week it became a slaphappy farce. Adapter Clark first cut up Moliére's tale of an upstart boob who ached to shine in high society. Then Actor Clark cut up in it. The result, here & there, is as hilarious as it is heterodox. But mostly it falls flat.
Seventeenth-Century Moliére (real name: Jean Baptiste Poquelin) might have been a little startled at what has happened to his doltish M. Jourdain, who was already an outrageous enough butt. Everybody...
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