In writing this book, I want to bring Molière back to the place he loved – the stage – by using the language and theories, the written and unwritten laws and trade secrets of his chosen craft to better understand this complex artisan of the theater, and in so doing to evoke through the comic spirit of Molière the miracle of the theater as a whole: a unique, deep and ongoing experience as it is born in the coming together of writer, actor and audience.

In 1947, when I saw my first Molière performance, the man inside the character of Alceste, transforming the actor standing in front of me and that ecstatic audience, was Molière. That ecstatic experience in the public grew out of feelings of joy for the ending of the Nazi Occupation; pride in the return of their national theater to French hands; admiration for the actor who had played an heroic role in the Resistance – all coalescing in their great love for Molière. The people in the audience who were standing and yelling – as well as the actor standing weeping right above my little strapontin in the front row center – all had some knowledge of the “given circumstances,” to use Stanislavski's later words, surrounding Molière's work. Everyone knew, at the very least, some details about his life while the actor on stage knew him as if he were his brother.