'TARTUFFE' TAKES FUN TO EXTREMES.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

NOW THAT'S one seriously demented experience. And I say that with the greatest possible respect.

So-called ``classics'' can be stately, musty, sleep-inducing or some combination thereof. Such reactions are the occasional byproducts of an experience that involves centuries-old lines and plots that contemporary audiences could only find ludicrous.

Then there's what the Actors' Gang has done with - make that done to - Moliere's ``Tartuffe.'' Which some of you may have seen before. But you have never seen it done quite like this.

There is not a whisker of restraint, quiet or passivity in director Jon Kellam's barn-burner of a production. When things get particularly frenetic, the very walls of Sibyl Wickersheimer's sheet-draped set start to close in, turning the estate of the gullible Orgon (played by P. Adam Walsh) into a demented fun house. When he finally appears, Tartuffe - the pious fraud of the title - seems to emerge from the underworld itself. Which is fitting, since the underworld appears to be what birthed him.

Staged with commedia dell'arte masks and white-face makeup, but with modern references spiking the action in the cheekiest of ways, this ``Tartuffe'' quickly shifts into zany overdrive and never stops. Orgon, who has taken Tartuffe (Andrew Wheeler) into his home and plans to make the man his heir, isn't simply an imbecile; he's an imbecile on Red Bull. Lindsley Allen (as Orgon's daughter, Marianne) and Simon Anthony (Marianne's betrothed, Valere) are no mere frustrated lovers; they're playing a Looney Tunes melodrama. And because everybody else is on the same zany wavelength, it works!

Kellam's ``Tartuffe'' - adapted by David Ball - could end up being one of the most peculiar introductions to this work that anyone could imagine. But there certainly are less-original ways to observe the French aristocracy being skewered.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

TARTUFFE - Four stars

Where: The Actors' Gang, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; through May 14.

Tickets: $25. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Welcome to the (French) fun house of hell.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Andrew Wheeler, as the duplicitous title character, and Nancy Stone, as Elmire, star in the Actors' Gang's ``Tartuffe.''