STAGE REVIEW : Double Helping of Moliere Theater: Old Globe production is lively if not a tad too exuberant.

A brisk double bill of Moliere plays has capered onto the Old Globe Theatre stage, as frisky as a young colt with all its tumbles and tricks, as collectively exuberant as a college class and just as wet behind the ears.

This is good news and bad. The good news is that Edward Payson Call’s spirited staging of Richard Wilbur’s latest Moliere translation, “The School for Husbands,” preceded by Albert Bermel’s adaptation of “The Flying Doctor,” makes for an intermissionless evening of nonstop playfulness.

The bad, or less good, is that it has a dewy young cast, whose overreaching ardor can become so enamored of its own cleverness as to flatten the jokes now and then. All that effusive breathlessness and glee get a bit wearing, even when savvy director Call has fun steering this merry band of players (many of whom are creditable products of the Old Globe/University of San Diego Professional Training/MFA Program) through the stylistic rapids of Commedia dell’Arte.

The program’s mainstay, “The School for Husbands,” is a moral tale of liberality winning out over possessiveness, delivered by Wilbur in a shimmering set of cleverly rhymed couplets.

Arch-conservative Sganarelle (Gordon Paddison) locks up his young ward, the pretty Isabelle (Susan Wands), instructing her in oppressive domesticity with the idea of later making

her his wife. Meanwhile, his more enlightened brother, Ariste, (Richard Easton) encourages the young woman in his charge, the handsome Leonor (Andrea D. Fitzgerald), to deploy her wings and explore the world.

You can imagine the rest, as Sganarelle’s plan misfires, Isabelle flies to the arms of a much younger suitor, Valere (Robert Petkoff), and the emancipated Leonor, having tasted of life’s banquet, decides that what she really wants is Ariste’s seasoned wisdom.

The evening’s curtain raiser, “The Flying Doctor” is a more traditional Commedia one-acter, wherein the servant Arlecchino (an acrobatic Tom Harrison) saves the day for his master, the puppeteer Valere (Petkoff again, the only actor to play duplicate romantic-interest roles of the same nature and name).

Valere gets the girl once more by having Arlecchino impersonate a doctor who prescribes fresh air for Valere’s languishing Lucile (Amy Beth Cohn). This forces her father Gorgibus (Paul James Kruse) to move her to a pavilion to which Valere has access. This scuttles Gorgibus’ plans for his daughter, such as marriage to the odious but rich puppeteer Gros-Rene (Fitzgerald, in a bit of gender-bending).

The “flying” qualifier applies to Arlecchino’s skill at swinging, Tarzan-like, on a rope or bounding in and out of a first-story window, as he tries to make Gorgibus believe he has a twin. It is classic Commedia slapstick at its broadest, the quintessential burla from which the word burlesque is derived.

All the actors disport themselves commendably, even if none achieves distinction and if Paddison, in a redoubtable performance, is visibly too young for the old grouch Sganarelle. The actors make up in eagerness what they lack in experience. So what is the eminent Easton doing in this crowd? He’s the tenured professor in a gaggle of undergraduates, lending effortless presence and gestural economy to this galluptious overabundance of vim.

Not that there’s anything wrong with vim, but that too much of it sustained at too high a pitch for too long is exhausting. Call surrendered an intermission for the sake of a smart segue from one play to the next. It is fun, but costly.

Robert Andrew Dahlstrom’s mock-cardboard setting for “The Flying Doctor” and inspired revolving gingerbread houses for “The School for Husbands” are fancifully on target, as are Michael Krass’ traditional Commedia costumes and masks, David F. Segal’s lights, Larry Delinger’s comic musical support and Jeff Ladman’s excellent (as usual) sound design. Antonin Hodek, a superlative mime in his own right, is credited with consultation on movement and it shows.

However, this Moliere double bill is no “Substance of Fire,” the play it replaced when the theater and author Jon Robin Baitz had contractual differences. It remains a lightweight substitute, a slender romp working hard to ingratiate itself, but fundamentally better suited to a summer menu.

“The School for Husbands” and “The Flying Doctor,” Old Globe Theatre, Simon Edison Centre for the Performing Arts, Balboa Park. At 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays and 2 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays. Through March 1. Tickets $17-$29.50. Call 239-2255. Running time: 2 hours.

“THE SCHOOL FOR HUSBANDS” and “THE FLYING DOCTOR”

Amy Beth Cohn; Lucile

Richard Easton: Lawyer, Ariste

Evangeline Fernandez: Villbrequin, Lisette

Andrea D. Fitzgerald: Gros-Rene, Leonor

Tom Harrison: Arlecchino, Ergaste

Paul James Kruse: Gorgibus, Magistrate

Gordon Paddison: Sganarelle

Alex Perez: Zany

Robert Petkoff: Valere

Donald Sager: Zany

Susan Wands: Sabine, Isabelle

An Old Globe Theatre presentation of two Moliere farces. Translators Richard Wilbur (“Husbands”), Albert Bermel (“Flying Doctor”). Director Edward Payson Call. Sets Robert Andrew Dahlstrom. Lights David F. Segal. Costumes Michael Krass. Composer Larry Delinger. Sound Jeff Ladman. Choreographer/movement consultant Antonin Hodek. Production stage manager Douglas Pagliotti. Assistant stage manager Melissa Joy Morris.