Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology of Plays Discussed
- List of Illustrations
- Act One The Back Story
- I “'Allo, Molière”
- II The First Stages
- III Finding His Light
- IV The Actor Unmasked
- Act Two The Agon
- Act Three The Comic Relief
- Act Four And Leave 'em Laughin'
- Notes
- Works Cited and Consulted
- Index
III - Finding His Light
from Act One - The Back Story
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology of Plays Discussed
- List of Illustrations
- Act One The Back Story
- I “'Allo, Molière”
- II The First Stages
- III Finding His Light
- IV The Actor Unmasked
- Act Two The Agon
- Act Three The Comic Relief
- Act Four And Leave 'em Laughin'
- Notes
- Works Cited and Consulted
- Index
Summary
Les Précieuses Ridicules
as conceived by Molière
as acted by Madeleine Béjart
as acted by Catherine de Brie
as translated by Robert W. Goldsby
That first year in Paris, they did poorly. Playing tragedies, these comedians may have looked like the proverbial image of a herd of deer caught in the headlights. They were no competition for the well-known tragedians at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. Molière was pilloried when he played tragedy. A rival actor of the time, Montfleury, maliciously described Molière's talents as a tragedian:
He enters … nose in the air,
Feet in parentheses, shoulder in the lead,
His wig, that swings from side to side as he walks,
Is more covered with laurel leaves than a spiced ham.
Hands at his sides, with a negligent air,
His head down like an overloaded mule,
His eyes rolling, he speaks his lines
With that eternal little “uh” separating his words.
The plays that had the best attendance were the two comedies he had written while in the provinces: L'Étourdi (The Blunderer) and Le DÉpit Amoureux (The Lovers' Quarrel).
One can imagine Molière, remembering that people had flocked to his comedies in the provinces, coming to recognize that comedy was his special talent; it's also easy to imagine him, as he walked around the familiar haunts of Paris, “a grave, deliberate, somber man,” coming to realize that Paris was now to be his subject. He must have watched the passers-by with their secret dreams and foibles hidden beneath their coats and wondered how he could exaggerate those dreams and foibles for laughter's sake as he had done in his farces about country doctors, provincial lawyers and peasant pedants.
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- Information
- Molière on StageWhat's So Funny?, pp. 15 - 22Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2012