Paris: A city of antique stone that glows gold when the sun sets. A city of love that is the romantic fantasy of lovers across seas. A city of deceitful liars. Broadneck Dramatics Guild’s production of “The Liar” reveals how a mistaken name and a single lie can set a cluster of people into disarray.

Originally a 1644 French comedy by Pierre Corneille based on a 1634 Spanish play by Juan Ruíz de Alarcón, “The Liar” was adapted into an English farce by playwright David Ives and first performed in 2010. The outrageous play follows Dorante, a man who arrives in seventeenth century Paris and instantly becomes infatuated with a woman named Clarice, whom he falsely believes is named Lucrece. A convoluted series of exorbitant fabrications ensues as Dorante and his acquaintances scurry around, trying to figure out who adores who-all while rhyming in iambic pentameter.

Rising to the role of the salacious fabulist Dorante was Broadneck’s own Austin Oliva. Oliva, in all his actions, dripped with slick charm as he delivered monologues about his fictitious past and his fanatical love for “Lucrece.” Clarice, the real object of his affections, was played by the vivacious Isabella Lopez. Lopez did a brilliant job portraying the disparity between the two characters; she was an independent woman with things to do and standards to be met, Oliva was a man with a playboy attitude and a craving for folly. Nonetheless, the fast-paced banter in this dynamic duo was anything but dreary.

Lopez, however, was not the only lovely lady leading the show; Martha Campbell, who stars as Clarice’s best friend Lucrece, deserves her own spotlight. In the first act, Campbell was the demure, bespectacled companion who never called attention to herself. But in act two, she burst into life, radiating with ardent lust and fervent desire for Oliva’s character. Campbell’s physicality–especially her facial expressions–and her vocal infliction were the foundations of her humor and character development, creating clear contrasts between Lucrece’s two sides: a girl obsessed with her sensual fantasies and a girl feeling insecure about love. Whether struggling to destroy a love letter or bouncing on a bed in joy, Campbell was certainly entertaining.

But no time-period show is complete without time-period elements. Victoria Scherini and Alexis Pecknay brought trendy seventeenth century French fashion into twenty-first century Maryland. Their complex costumes featured everything from coats patterned with fleurs-de-lis to tight powder pink corsets to ruffled collars sewn from white lace to wheel farthingales. Combined with Ziggy Coughlin and the BHS Make-up Crew’s intricate up-dos and elaborate curls, the contemporary actors were laudably transformed into Parisian nobility. With a sophisticated aesthetic established, the farcical humor became even more ridiculous.

Broadneck Dramatics Guild’s production of “The Liar” is two hours bursting with absurd comedy, bizarre characters, and copious amounts of Shakespearian rhyming that are sure to draw a chuckle from anybody. By the time the show is over, everyone in the audience will have learned to be more careful when finding out people’s names.

by Claire Vervack of Liberty