'TARTUFFE' HITS THE RIGHT NOTES IN ODYSSEY STAGING.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

ANYBODY with a script can stage a so-called classic, but it takes pros like the members of Circus Theatricals to demonstrate why a French play written more than 300 years ago should still be considered a classic.

Moliere's ``Tartuffe'' - produced by Circus Theatricals at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble - is arguably the stablest of the playwright's works and certainly one of the most-often performed. Many of us who have read it in high school or college know the plot, the characters and where the humor is supposed to be.

Even if you can recite the play line by line, there are great laughs to be experienced watching Daphne Zuniga's Elmire catching Jack Stehlin's Tartuffe in a virtual headlock between her thighs. She's on top of a table under which her gullible husband is hiding. Here at last is the proof that dim bulb Orgon (Mark Bramhall) has placed his trust in exactly the wrong person. (Earlier, Tartuffe had used that same table for an altar.)

The near seduction of Elmire is frequently the play's best scene: outrageous, randy, a superb comic sequence - particularly for the actress playing Elmire. Zuniga (of filmdom's ``The Sure Thing'' and ``Spaceballs'') has ingenue beauty and the wit of a character actress, and she handles the scene with verve and dexterity. Stehlin - also the production's director - wears a wig that makes him look like a member of the Beatles gone disreputable. He's a surprisingly direct and unsneaky Tartuffe. Then again, playing a fish as ripe for the flames as Mark Bramhall's Orgon, he doesn't need to be.

We're in a period/contemporary hybrid land here that sometimes suggests companies are trying to keep their costume budgets manageable. Melissa McVay's costumes are largely modern, the verse rhymes (by translator Richard Wilbur) are apparent but not over-punched. And Moliere is kept front and center courtesy of a portrait on the main wall. Portraits of Orgon's family are on the side wall; they come down as Tartuffe rises to prominence in the household.

All in all, a quick and witty evening, classically and classily delivered.

TARTUFFE - Three and one half stars

Where: Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays; through July 20.

Tickets: $19.50 to $25. [phone].

In a nutshell: Wonderfully cast, briskly staged revival of a true classic.