Entertainment

He’ll charm your pants off

You can tell that George Bernard Shaw was still a young man when he wrote “The Philanderer.” This infrequently performed comedy has a breezy playfulness, unlike the playwright’s more heavy-going later efforts. Its silly fun is perfectly realized in the Pearl Theatre Company’s rollicking new revival.

Written in 1893 but not staged until nearly a decade later — its treatment of sexual themes was considered too risqué for the times — the play depicts the romantic misadventures of Charteris (Bradford Cover), a philosopher juggling two women. He’s enamored of the widow Grace (Rachel Botchan), but his other lover, the feisty Julia (Karron Graves), isn’t giving him up without a fight.

The battle is largely conducted in the library of the “Ibsen Club,” and this is where things get a little esoteric.

“The Philanderer” was written just a few years after Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” sparked controversy with its startling portrayal of a woman standing up for herself, and it had a huge effect on Shaw. Here he satirizes the ripple effect it had on British society — and it doesn’t feel dated at all.

Shaw also takes amusing jabs at the medical profession with the character of Dr. Paramore (Chris Mixon), who’s diagnosed Julia’s father (Dan Daily) with a new and fatal liver disease he’s proudly named after himself. His crestfallen reaction when he learns that his research was wrong and that his hapless patient is going to live is priceless.

Gus Kaikkonen’s inventive staging includes the brief appearance of a small black Shih Tzu that had the audience literally cooing with delight. Of the terrific human ensemble, Cover is drolly hilarious as the title character, a philosopher who prefers “charming friendships” to marriage.