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REVELATION READING

THE MISANTHROPE

by MOLIÈRE
a version by MARTIN CRIMP
Monday, February 17, 2025 | 7:30 PM
Florence Gould Theater at the L’Alliance New York

Directed by Marc Vietor

Featuring Graham Campbell, Juliana Canfield, Gregory Connors, Julie Halston, Merritt Janson, Max Gordon Moore, David Pittu, Peter Sarsgaard, and Robert Sella

Martin Crimp's version of Molière's classic updates the play by bringing it into a contemporary London world of theatre and media moguls, giving it a sublime, carefully balanced blank verse language that is enjoyably savage. The misanthropic, ruthless Alceste is in love with Jennifer, but is constantly being thwarted by various male callers. Starting by mocking critic-turned-playwright Covington, Alceste soon extends his scathing satiric attack to the whole media circus that encircles him. 

This reading is presented in partnership with L’Alliance New York.

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THE CAST

PRODUCTION PROGRAM

CAST

Alceste | PETER SARSGAARD

John | ROBERT SELLA

Covington | DAVID PITTU

Jennifer | JULIANA CANFIELD

Ellen | MERRITT JANSON

Marcia | JULIE HALSTON

Julian | GRAHAM CAMPBELL

Alexander | MAX GORDON MOORE

Simon / Motorbike Messenger | GREGORY CONNORS

PRODUCTION TEAM

Director | Marc Vietor

Stage Manager | Jenn McNeil 

Assistant Stage Manager | Jessica Fornear

Translator | Mirabelle Ordinaire

Scholar | Sylvaine Guyot

Voice and Speech Coach | Deborah Hecht

Associate Producer | Joana Tsuhlares

General Manager | Sherri Kotimsky

Producing Director | Nathan Winkelstein

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ABOUT THE PLAY

The Misanthrope is considered to be Molière’s masterpiece — the playwright himself declared he would never be able to write anything better. He started writing the play in 1664 at a time of personal and professional crisis. A religious cabal had succeeded in forbidding the performances of Tartuffe; his health was already starting to decline sharply; and his wife Armande’s infidelities tortured his jealous soul, leading to an anguished breakup. Molière poured his personal woes into his play, which he also hoped would be sufficiently successful to compensate for the financial loss his company endured after the Tartuffe debacle. The Misanthrope was premiered at the Théâtre du Palais Royal in June 1666; Molière played the honest-to-a fault, antisocial Alceste, and his wife Armande played his witty and ruthless paramour Célimène. Performed over thirty times in its opening run, the play was not a complete failure — but it was far from the major success Molière was hoping for, and was seldom to be remounted by the company during his lifetime. The audience was put off by the seriousness and austerity of a comedy that made people laugh only “in their souls," as a contemporary critic described — a far cry from Molière's previous (and forthcoming) popular comedies.


Indeed, The Misanthrope offers the best example of the way in which Molière transformed French comedy. Instead of basing his comedy on the traditional Italian and Spanish models, peopled with stock characters involved in complicated, twisted plots, Molière used the model of French tragedies, which explore the subtle inner workings of human nature. As the full title The Misanthrope, or The Cantankerous Lover indicates, Molière did conceive the play as a comedy, and we know he performed Alceste as a comic character, one whose idiosyncrasies — stubbornness, prejudice, excesses, and refusal to conform to either common sense, reason or social conventions — were made to be ridiculed. However, following the French tragic model, Molière built the play’s entire plot around the main character’s psychological quirks. He also imbued Alceste with a very personal anger and bitterness, and clearly deplored the moral and social circumstances that spurred Alceste’s extreme reactions. The Misanthrope thus comes across as a fascinatingly complex, tragic character study, embedded within a comedy of manners replete with colorful characters — the ridiculous marquis, the heartless coquette, and the unfulfilled prude, to name but a few. Molière took great pains to polish the play’s verses as well as its overall construction, and emphasized the social and artistic role played by language, from the fawning emptiness of the marquis’ boring and flat verses to Célimène’s hilariously scathing and mean witticisms. By contrast, Alceste’s multifaceted personality and his formidable text (both in quality and quantity of lines) has allowed for a wide range of interpretations throughout the centuries, from highly comic to utterly tragic, showing the play’s versatility and continued relevance to each historical moment in which it is performed.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was born in Paris in 1622. Under the pseudonym Molière, he and Madeleine Béjart created a theatre troupe in 1643 called "The Illustrious Theatre." Their first shows were failures, and Molière was thrown into debtor’s prison. Upon his release he went on the road as the troupe's director, principal actor, and occasional playwright. In 1658 the troupe successfully mounted its first performance in front of King Louis XIV, and in 1659 The Affected Young Women launched Molière's career as a playwright. Molière and his players became the King's troupe in 1665, but some of the more religiously or socially virulent plays were not well received. Tartuffe (1664) and Dom Juan (1665) were both forbidden, and The Misanthrope (1666) enjoyed only mild success. That same year Molière wrote The Doctor In Spite of Himself, his most elaborate attempt to date at criticizing the medicine of his time, albeit in a farcical setting. The play was a big success, and from then on Molière focused on comedies up until his very last play, The Imaginary Invalid (1673), in which he played the lead role and derided, one last time, his contemporaries’ blind faith in what was then (and arguably still is) a very inexact science. During the fourth performance of the play Molière started coughing blood onstage; he finished the performance and died a few hours later. In 1680, by order of the King, his troupe was merged with two rival troupes to form the Comédie Française.

Mirabelle Ordinaire

ABOUT THE MARTIN CRIMP

Martin Crimp, born 1956, is a British playwright whose 1997 play, Attempts on her Life, established his international reputation. 

 

His plays range from elliptical dramas of contemporary life — Definitely the Bahamas (1987), Dealing with Clair (1989), The Country (2000), The City (2008), Men Asleep (2018) — via the two satirical ‘entertainments’ Attempts on her Life (1997) and In the Republic of Happiness (2012) — to re-imaginings of Greek classics — Cruel & Tender (2004) and The rest will be familiar to you from cinema (2013) — the French language premiere of this play being presented at the Théâtre de Gennevilliers and the Festival d’Avignon (2019).

 

Recent notable productions include When we have sufficiently tortured each other – 12 Variations on Samuel Richardson’s ‘Pamela’ (2019) at London’s National Theatre, an adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac (2022) in London and BAM in New York, and a revival of The Country at the Théâtre du Rond Point, Paris (2023).

 

His first encounter with composer George Benjamin led to the ‘lyric tale’ Into the Little Hill (Festival d’automne, 2006), followed by Written on Skin (Festival d’Aix en (Provence, 2012) Lessons in Love and Violence (The Royal Opera House, 2018), and Picture a day like this (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence,2023). Among other musical collaborations are the song-cycle Zauberland (Bouffes du Nord, 2018) with Bernard Foccroulle — and lyrics, drawn from his plays, for Roald van Oosten’s 2012 EP, 100% Happy.

 

Martin’s first solo show as writer and performer, Not one of these people (2022), opened at the Carrefour International Theatre Festival in Québec City before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre in London and Montreal’s USINE C, followed by performances at the International Festival of New Drama at the Schaubühne in Berlin. 

 

In 2020 Martin was awarded the Nyssen-Bansemer Theatre Prize.

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L’Alliance New York is an independent, not-for-profit organization committed to providing its audience and students with engaging French language classes and audacious multi-disciplinary programming that celebrates the diversity of francophone cultures and creativity around the world. A welcoming and inclusive community for all ages and all backgrounds, L’Alliance New York is a place where people can meet, learn, and explore the richness of our heritages and share discoveries. L’Alliance New York strives to amplify voices and build bridges from the entire francophone world to New York and beyond.

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