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Synopsis

Glossary

Life of Molière

Chronology of Molière’s Major Works

Racine and Molière

Molière: Historical Context

Molière: Performance History at Court Theatre

SYNOPSIS
Two young men, Octave and Léandre, have fallen in love with two women, Hyacinthe and Zerbinette, in secret while their fathers were away. Octave met Hyacinthe when she was sobbing over her dead mother’s body, immediately fell in love, and (upon Hyacinthe’s insistence) got married. Léandre met Zerbinette at a gypsy camp where she grew up after being stolen from her biological parents.

Upon the fathers’ unexpected return, the sons beg Scapin—Léandre’s servant and a consummate con artist—to help them. His efforts scramble the situation into a worse mess.

In the meantime, the sons need money for the dowry to ransom Zerbinette from the gypsies. In a wickedly funny series of events, Scapin swindles the money from the dads, and then gets revenge on Géronte, Léandre’s father, for telling a lie about Scapin to Léandre.

Through a dizzying series of revelations, Géronte reveals that Hyacinthe is his daughter from a secret second marriage, and Argante (Octave’s father) recognizes Zerbinette as his long lost daughter (who was stolen by gypsies).

As the lovers are reunited, Scapin is wheeled in on his “death bed.” He manipulates Géronte into forgiving him—and is miraculously healed.

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GLOSSARY

The Setting: Originally set by Molière in Naples, Italy
This is a very loose setting. It is Molière’s idea of where an Italian comedy should be set. And then the setting is pushed into the contemporary world for this production. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the setting is a port city, with a heavy Italian or Spanish influence. It’s kind of seedy and dangerous, but also rich. Where bands of thugs coexist with the sheltered daughters of merchants. There are transients and residents alike – in short, many objects of prey for the wily Scapin. Like Havana or New Orleans or Marseilles.

Naples itself is known for a labyrinth of tunnels and crypts underneath the city.

“Smugglers and criminals move quietly below. . .
4 Thousand year old Grecian burial crypts. . .
Just part of the "Sottosuolo" of bella Napoli !!”

At the time Molière wrote SCAPIN, Naples was an Italian city under Spanish control.

The Characters:

Scapin
Scapin is both the name of the main character in SCAPIN and the name of one of the stock (or basic) characters in the tradition of Italian Comedy (or commedia dell ‘arte). Scapin is traditionally one of the rascal servants. Although a good-hearted fellow, Scapin is an incredible liar who can keep control and maneuver his way through any situation. And if he loses control, can easily run away either with a tall tale or, if need be, with his feet.

Sylvestre
Sylvestre is the other servant character SCAPIN. Sylvestre is not nearly as smart or in control as Scapin, so he is the “second” servant (in the Italian Comedy tradition of two servants where one is dominant). Director Chris Bayes modeled Sylvestre on the Commedia stock character of Pierot. Pierot has a good heart but is a bit stupid and stubborn.

The fathers: Argante and Géronte
Both fathers in SCAPIN are merchants, and both love money and control money gives them over their children (who are in a way just another commodity). Because they are merchants, both Argante and Géronte are modeled on the commedia stock character of Pantalone.

The Lovers: Octave, Léandre, Hyacinthe, Zerbinette
In an Italian comedy, there are almost always a group of lovers. They are young, naïve, and absolutely obsessed with love and each other.

Gypsies
A bit of a convention for Molière, meaning exotic and foreign people.

Gypsies are the English name for the Romany people, a tribe of nomadic people who came to Europe in the 14th or 15th century from India and lived and maintained a migratory way of life chiefly in Europe and the U.S. At the time Molière wrote Scapin, Romany (or “gypsies”) were a fact of life in all parts of Europe, but a poorly understood people with a xenophobic reputation for stealing children.

Taranto
Italian port city on the Adriatic directly across Italy from Naples. It is renowned for it’s harbor and coastal life. Taranto is the city where one of the two fathers in Scapin had a second family hidden away from his “real” life in Naples.

Turkish yacht
At the time the play was written, the Ottoman Empire was one of the great powers in the world and a serious military threat to Christianity. They had overrun what is now Yugoslavia (so a Turkish yacht in Naples would be a common occurrence). But as Muslims, Turks would be entirely foreign and very threatening. So it’s an excellent lie, being both probable and dangerous.

Hyacinthe’s imaginary brother’s thug culture
At this time, Naples was a big international port. Like Marseilles or New York or New Orleans or Miami or Havana (pre-Castro) port cities are all uniquely dangerous and threatening, while also being diverse and exciting. Because there is little control of who lives there, and itinerants move freely, the possibility of gangs and violence is right around the corner. So Scapin is again weaving excellent lies based on a probable reality.

Miser
A stock character in Molière’s work (especially the play The Miser). A mean grasping person, and one who hoards his wealth and lives miserably in order to do so. In a way, it’s the opposite of frugality (living well or carefully on limited means).

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LIFE OF MOLIÈRE
The name Molière (1622-1673) is among the most famous comic writers in the theatre, standing alongside the names of such luminaries as Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Chekhov and Ibsen. Molière, however, was not given this name. Soon after his birth on January 15, 1622, he was christened Jean-Baptiste Poquelin.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was the oldest son of a prosperous upholsterer in Paris and grew up as part of the rising bourgeoisie. His bourgeoisie roots and childhood would appear to great comic effect in many of his mature plays. When Jean-Baptiste was nine, his father purchased a post as an upholsterer to King Louis XIII, which provided an annual pension and the high social honors gained from royal service.

After his elementary education, Jean-Baptiste became a pupil at the prestigious Jesuit College of Clérmont. Under the Jesuit curriculum, Jean-Baptiste was required to master Latin as well as French. He studied grammar, rhetoric, the humanities and philosophy but also had the opportunity to learn about the theatre, by participating each year in a performance of a Latin tragedy or comedy. While at Clérmont, the young playwright met the Prince de Conti, who later became one of Molière’s patrons, and Cyrano de Bergerac, the French dramatic master of political satire and science-fantasy, who proved a lifelong friend and supporter of Molière’s.

After graduating from Clérmont, Jean-Baptiste made a brief attempt to study law, like many with his educational background. He then succeeded to his father’s position as upholsterer to King Louis XIII, and consequently, accompanied the king on his military campaigns in 1642. But a year later, at the age of 21, he renounced his inheritance of both the family business and a comfortable life, and made a career decision that ensured him a stressful existence but also a place in the history of world literature. He joined a group of actors to form a small Paris-based theatrical company.

Molière made his decision in spite of the fact that actors occupied a complicated place in French society. Though valued and often sponsored by the king and the court for the entertainment they provided, actors stood condemned in the eyes of the Church as infames, unholy outcasts banned from receiving the sacraments. They could not be buried in sanctified ground, and held the same status as prostitutes. By 1644 Jean-Baptiste had taken the professional name Molière to avoid contaminating his family with an association with an actor.

The acting troupe that Molière joined was known as the Illustre-Théâtre. The group mostly used an abandoned tennis court in Paris as its performing space, which was not an uncommon practice for theatre groups at the time. Madeleine Béjart, an experienced actress, led the troupe. Madeleine became Molière’s frequent collaborator, his lover and his muse, inspiring him to create a number of his plays and performing leading roles in them. Despite his lengthy infatuation with Madeleine, Molière eventually married her younger sister (or more probably her daughter) Armande. Madeleine apparently never resented the two for their choice – she ultimately left Armande the small fortune she had acquired.

When the Illustre-Théâtre failed, Molière went to prison for debt. But even after this harrowing beginning, the playwright remained committed to a life in the theatre. After his release on bail paid by his father, Molière left Paris for the provinces. He reorganized a group of actors from the acting company and toured with them for 13 years, from 1645-1658. This period is known as Molière’s apprenticeship in theatre as a comic actor and playwright. In these 13 years, Molière became an adept craftsman of all comic theatrical forms, including farce, satire, physical comedy, commedia dell’arte, comedy of character, comedy of manners, and comedy of morals.

In October 1658, Molière’s now seasoned and proficient acting company returned to Paris. Less than a month later, on October 24, the actors performed for King Louis XIV (who was 20 years old at the time). Unwisely choosing to mount a tragedy by Corneille (a seventeenth century tragic writer), the company was not well received. This was in part because of Molière’s habit of hiccuping on stage was inappropriate for the elevated historical themes of the play. But Molière apologized and then offered a comedy of his own, Le Docteur Amoureux. With Molière’s comic abilities carrying the farce, Le Docteur Amoureux gave him and his company their first success in the capital. The players received the patronage of the king’s brother and permission to remain in Paris, and shared a performance space with a famous commedia dell’arte troupe led by the French theatrical personality, Scaramouche.

After a hesitant start during which they continued trying to perform tragedies, the desperate actors finally won a following with two older comedies by Molière, and began to attract attention and audiences. In November 1659, Molière abandoned the stock plots of Old Comedy and introduced a one-act satire of Parisian society, Les Précieuses Ridicules (The Precious Provincials), which assured his place in the forefront of the theatrical world. He soon found himself commissioned to provide a series of court entertainments, complete with music and dancing. In 1660, a few months after its previous space was demolished, the king granted Molière’s company the theatre at the Palais Royal, establishing them at last in a secure, permanent home.

In 1662 Molière married Armande Béjart, an actress who would join with Molière’s troupe and who was the young sister (or daughter) of Molière’s former lover, Madeleine Béjart. Molière was forty years old, and Armande was just twenty. It is certain that the wedding was directly responsible for Molière’s creating L’École des femmes. This play betrays Molière’s keen awareness of the hopes he pinned on his own marriage and deep sensitivity to its possibilities for emotional disaster. Molière had known his young wife since she was a girl of five and a member of his company. He may have begun an affair with her in her teens (there is evidence that as of 1659, Molière was infatuated with Armande). Many, even Molière’s own friends, believed she was Madeleine’s illegitimate daughter and not her sister. Rival actor Montfleury even accused Molière publicly of incestuously marrying his own child. Molière had to refute this charge in person before his royal patron. Molière argued his case well, for Louis XIV stood behind his favorite playwright. He commissioned L’Impromptu de Versailles, which satirized Montfleury’s acting company. Indeed, when the couple’s first child was born in 1664, the godparents were none other than King Louis XIV and his queen—a public sign that the royal pair believed Molière’s marriage was on moral solid ground.

Molière deeply loved Armande, but it is unclear that Armande shared a similar passion for him. In addition to being half Molière’s age, Armande was reputedly coquettish and a constant source of concern for her jealous husband. Most of his friends, indeed most of Paris, believed him justified in his unending jealousy. Rumors that linked her name with those of the most illustrious men in Paris constantly tortured her husband. Yet Molière wrote many of his finest roles for Armande, including Célimène in The Misanthrope and Elmire in Tartuffe. At least one of Molière’s biographers reports that Armande acted the roles brilliantly. Nevertheless, in spite of Molière’s passion and devotion, for much of his marriage to Armande they were merely working partners. After the birth of their daughter in 1666 (the only child to survive), the couple separated until 1672.

King Louis XIV was at the pinnacle of French civilization and his support greatly contributed to the commercial success and wide popularity of Molière’s company. The King’s court consisted of the most glittering people of the age—the royal family, the higher nobility and foreign ambassadors. Some nobles spent half their life’s savings to be at court for only a day. The men and women of the court were splendidly dressed and mannered. To keep these nobles content to fritter away their fortunes on the elegance of court life instead of on political challenge, King Louis provided them with many sorts of entertainment, including hunts, dinners, balls, concerts, and, of course, plays.

For Easter 1663, Louis granted Molière a substantial royal pension and made him “comic poet” to the King. Thinking himself secure in his royal patronage, Molière wrote one of his most daring plays the following year. Tartuffe satirizes the false morality of pious hypocrites, and the play delighted the King and his court. The satire’s attacks, however, angered the Jansenists, a group of strict moralists with great influence at court and significant allies in the clergy. The Jansenists united with other groups hostile to Molière and to theatre in general and condemned the play as blasphemy. King Louis, who was in the midst of a power struggle with Church factions, protected Molière from the worst of these attacks but was forced to ban Tartuffe.

While writing Tartuffe, Molière certainly had in mind the religious factions’ persecution of him, yet his chief inspiration was even more personal. Orgon’s blindness to Tartuffe’s attempted seductions reminds the viewer of The School for Wives, The Misanthrope and other plays in which Molière mocked his own sad plight as the older husband of a spirited young wife.

Molière substituted Don Juan as a replacement for Tartuffe, but this complex and ambiguous work likewise raised the ire of the still-hostile moralists. Consequently, Don Juan too was removed from the repertory. In support once more of the popular playwright, the king himself assumed direct patronage of the company and raised its annual pension. Hard won professional security provided small consolation. That same year Molière’s son died. Racine, the great tragedian whom Molière had befriended and supported, deserted him for the rival company at the Bourgogne (luring with him one of the principle actresses of Molière’s company). And to put a cap on an awful year the overworked and harried author developed the lung trouble that would ultimately cause his death.

After a brief spell during which the theatres closed to mourn the death of the King’s mother, Molière wrote Le Misanthrope for the reopening in 1666. Full of some of his wittiest poetry, as well as much of the bitterness of the previous years, the play was a moderate but not overwhelming success. Audiences were unsure of how to respond to the play’s social satire, in which Molière ridicules a society based on compromise and convenience while also poking fun at the inflexibility of the overly just.

Molière followed Le Misanthrope with several more of his best-known works – including Le medecin malgré lui, L’Avare and Amphitryon – as well as many court entertainments. In each of these Molière continued to combine elements of classical theater with a satire of contemporary society and its various pretensions. While his satire continued to gain him enemies among professionals and intellectuals, the general public and the aristocrats adored his plays. In 1667, after petitions and private readings, King Louis authorized another version of Tartuffe, revised and masked under the title of L’Imposteur. The furor of the pious resumed, however. In the King’s absence, police surrounded the theatre and closed it down. Tartuffe was not seen again publicly until 1669.

For the next several years, Molière remained almost constantly at the king’s command, writing one play after another in response to the demands of the royal court. Le bourgeois gentilhomme, probably the most famous of the plays written at this time, was first presented in October 1670. The play, with its comic ballets and joyous gaiety, delighted the court. Some have recognized similarities between this play and The Learned Ladies, as both plays deal with bourgeois social climbing. In 1671 Molière collaborated with Corneille to write a spectacular tragic-ballet on classical themes, which became Psyché. Complete with elaborate scenic devices, music and dance, the work was popular enough to transfer from court to the Palais Royal, requiring reconstruction of the theatre to accommodate the complicated stage machinery.

On February 17, 1672, Molière’s former business partner and lover, Madeleine Béjart, died. Just before Madeleine’s death, Molière and Armande had reconciled and resumed living together in a luxuriously furnished home. During 1672, Armande gave birth to a second son, who did not survive, and Molière became ill. Yet that same year the playwright managed to write Les Femmes savantes (The Learned Ladies), a more mature and sophisticated treatment of the themes of Les Précieuses Ridicules. Molière had tinkered with the play for years, and considered it one of his most perfect creations. He also used his ailments as a source of bright comedy in Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) in 1673, taking the title role of the foolish hypochondriac. Molière’s perforamance was an immediate success, and repeated the play several times. On February 17, 1673, despite convulsions and an insistent cough, Molière again performed the part. After taking his bows, he had to be carried home to bed. While his wife searched frantically for a priest, Molière suffered a severe hemorrhage of the lungs and died – exactly one year after the death of Madeleine Béjart.

Because he had died without renouncing his profession as an actor and without receiving last rites, the archbishop of Paris refused to allow Molière’s body to be buried in sanctified ground. Armande appealed to King Louis, saying the priests had refused to come at her urging during the author’s last hours. One final time, the King proved a staunch friend and ordered that a proper burial be allowed. Nevertheless, the enemies who had plagued Molière in life continued to hound him in death, and King Louis still had to compromise: the funeral held on February 21 was private, after dark and without ceremony, and Molière’s body was placed in an unmarked grave.

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CHRONOLOGY OF MOLIÈRE’S MAJOR WORKS

1655 L’Etourdi (The Scatterbrain)
1659 Les Précieuses ridicules (The Precious Provincials)
1661 Dom Garcie de Navarre, L’Ecole des maris (The School for Husbands)
1662 L’École des femmes (The School for Wives)
1663 La Critique de L’École des femmes (The Critique of the School for Wives)
1664 Le Tartuffe (premier is banned)
1665 Don Juan
1666 Le Misanthrope, Le Médecin malgré lui (The Doctor in spite of himself)
1668 Amphitryon, Georges Dandin, L’Avare (The Miser)
1669 Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
1669 Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman)
1669 Les Fourberies de Scapin (The Misadventures of Scapin)
1669 Les Femmes savantes (The Learned Ladies)
1673 Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid)

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RACINE AND MOLIÈRE
“In my heart I prefer fame above all else, even life itself . . . Love of glory has the same subtleties as the most tender passions . . . In exercising a totally divine function here on earth, we must appear incapable of turmoil which could debase it.” -Louis XIV

“Molière crafts his comedies in dialogue with his audience: he responds to the powerful craving felt by a new theater public under Louis XIV to see itself depicted on stage.” -Larry F. Norman, The Public Mirror

“The primary characteristics of the new literary style [in France at the end of the 17th century] were the heightened importance it place on character psychology, as well as its general emphasis on interiority, in particular on increasingly intense emotionality.” -Joan de Jean, Ancients Against Moderns


The man who most directly ties PHÈDRE author Racine (1639-1699) and Molière (1622-1673) is France’s magnificent King Louis XIV (1638-1715). Louis became King at the age of four and a half. On March 10, 1661 Louis took over running his own government, in defiance of his advisors, the nobles and family tradition.

The “Sun King” as Louis became known is as famous for his absolute power as his love and patronage of the arts. As a baby, the King was rumored to have been entertained by a famous commedia actor, the man who created the infamous character Scaramouche. This actor visited the infant Prince held in his mother’s arms. The Prince started screaming, so Scaramouche picked him up and using his comic facility began to entertain the future King. The baby was so excited he micturated all over Scaramouche. And thus was born (according to legend) the King’s love affair with theatre.

Although Molière was older than both Racine and Louis, he spent thirteen years in the provinces of France touring with his company and perfecting his theatrical skills. Molière’s return associated him with the beginning of Louis’ reign and men (like Racine) of Louis’ generation. Molière himself thought of his comedies as merely a way of making a living until he could prove himself a master of the tragic tradition. His personal failure made the young friend and fellow playwright Racine’s triumph as France’s leading Tragedian even more bitter.

Racine sense of irony, form, and passion perfectly suited the increasingly refined tragic form. Racine’s perfect twelve-syllable verse restraining the intense agonies and ecstasies of complicated love pushed French Tragedy to new heights of emotional tensions. At the same time, in such plays as Tartuffe, Don Juan, and The Misanthrope, Molière discovered the ironic sophistication of satire and critical comedy. Each writer, in their own style, discovered new theatrical forms to represent the complexity of the human emotional experience on the stage.

While both Racine and Molière experienced both financial and patronage from Louis XIV, they both also remained constrained by the delicate political climate of the Court. Racine finally abandoned the theater in favor of an official position as Court Historian. And Molière abandoned the sophisticated social commentary of his mid-career masterpieces for equally well crafted but much less dangerous experiments with the comic form. Scapin, for example, grows directly out of the Italian Comedy tradition rather than breaking new comic or socially critical ground. Pleasing the King, an impulse central to both playwright’s maturation, put rigid boundaries on the seventeenth century creative impulse.

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MOLIÈRE: HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The Sun King
The seventeenth century was the age of the absolute monarch in Europe. Never again would European kings have such individual potency. Most glorious and complex among these all-powerful rulers was Louis XIV, the Sun King, whose long reign lasted from 1643 to 1715. Louis XIV acceded to the throne when he was only five. As a result, the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria, became regent and the most powerful person in France. The French people's hatred of Anne's prime minister Mazarin led to the bloody, almost disastrous civil war known as The Fronde, in which a faction of the nobles joined the lower classes in revolt. In the midst of this civil war, Louis XIV (then thirteen) ended the regency of his mother. This start of Louis XIV's reign, which forced him to personally deal with a conflict that threatened to destroy his rule, influenced his absolute ruler style of governance. It prompted him to carefully manipulate the world around him to assure his lasting control.

Molière spent much of his career in the royal service of Louis XIV, and was one of many intellectual and artistic giants who received royal sponsorship and produced great works during this splendid period of French culture (for example the standardization of the French language and the invention of ballet). Molière served the whim of his monarch, as it was King Louis XIV who dominated all of French civilization. He reigned at the top of a rigid social hierarchy that was sharply divided into three Estates: the nobility, the clergy, and the Third Estate of middle and lower classes.

The Nobility
Although there are no noble people in the world of SCAPIN, they lurk at the top of the social order (even in a play about merchant households).

At the beginning of his reign, Louis established the royal court outside of Paris at Versailles, and with it the center of society and culture. Although, due to Louis' plan to distance the nobles from politics, few nobles now held governmental positions, they flocked to the King's side, vying to outdo one another in their expensive clothing, their mannered behavior, and their proximity to the King himself. It became a valued privilege to attend the Sun King at his rising in the morning or retiring at night.

Eventually, the studied elegance and ease that the aristocracy cultivated transformed them into idlers enjoying lives of endless empty luxury. These are the foolish marquis that Molière made the object of his humor in The Misanthrope-gallants more concerned with the cut of their coats than with anything else. The deeper, more biting aspect of Molière's observation resides in the fact that the nobles were essentially right to obsess about tiny details, for these tiny details of decorum made a vast difference in personal status at court. Louis wanted his nobles around him where they could be watched, rather than on their estates plotting against him. Thus, as the nobles drove each other to bankruptcy in their pursuit of elegance, the King strengthened his rule into a firm authority unmatched in any age.

The Clergy
There are also no characters from the clergy in SCAPIN - in fact due to the power of the church no member of the clergy is depicted in any of Molière's plays. However, the main opposition to Italian Comedy and commedia companies came from the Catholic Clergy, who were offended by the often vulgar subject matter of these plays. Molière himself was constantly scrutinized and censored by the Catholic clergy.

Like the nobles, the more superior Catholic clergymen ranked high on the social ladder, allowing them to profit from French taxes as well as to participate in the magnificence of court life. Also, just like the nobles, King Louis limited the clergy’s power. Louis believed that he governed France by God's will. Therefore, while he was willing to allow the Pope the final word on matters of religion, he insisted that the Catholic clergy submit to his orders on matters of state. The majority of the French clergy supported this arrangement, but Louis' view of his direct and personal relationship to God caused a rift with the Pope, which was not mended until 1693.

No force shaped the lives of theatre artists in seventeenth-century France so much as the opposition of the Church. Centuries of conflict had resulted in many priests banning actors from receiving the sacraments. Under law, acting companies were forbidden "to represent any dishonest actions or to use any lascivious language or double entendre that might do injury to the public good." It is noteworthy that the law also forbade total elimination of theatre. The public censor read all plays and the plays were subject to the ultimate approval of the King himself-who, however, was himself subject to the pressures of the Church. The coercive effect that the Church had on the King became especially apparent when Molière presented Tartuffe, incurring the wrath of the clergy. While Louis was able to protect Molière from being executed as a heretic, he was powerless to prevent Tartuffe from languishing unproduced for many years.

The Third Estate
This class and their servants make up the world of SCAPIN.

As the aristocrats strutted and preened in the shaded gardens and marble halls of Versailles, and the clergy plotted and planned in what amounted to virtually a parallel society of its own, the middle classes were quietly amassing wealth and separating themselves from the multitudes. This elite category included merchants (like the fathers in SCAPIN), university-trained lawyers and doctors, financiers, bankers and municipal officials. With the nobility reduced to palace hangers-on, the middle class became during the seventeenth century the economic backbone of French society. It was they who lent money to the Crown, whose taxes supported the expansion of the state and the grandiose projects of the King, and whose overseas ventures ensured the spread of French dominion. Some were chosen as royal advisers and ministers, like the influential mercantilist Colbert; others achieved nobility themselves with their commercial wealth.

With newfound leisure and capital, the bourgeoisie invested in luxury. They bought elaborate furniture, clothing and textiles, and ate elaborate meals. Indeed, so avidly did middle class households ape aristocratic fashions that sumptuary laws were passed to regulate what they could wear and how much they could spend.

Bourgeois boys were sent to petites écoles for their primary education. Privileged youths were able to receive an excellent secondary education at an academy of the Oratorians or, as did Molière, a college of the Jesuits. Bourgeois girls were generally not permitted to attend the boys' petites écoles, and therefore, were sent to convent schools. They learned religion, some sewing, drawing and music, but even less reading, writing and arithmetic. There were no institutions to provide secondary education to girls. In a societal custom that seems to have irked Molière particularly, most young people had little say in their choice of spouse-women least of all. Instead, marriages continued for the most part to be arranged as convenient alliances between families rather than as love-matches between the two concerned parties. This practice gave rise to a vast number of extra-marital affairs, once again mirroring the customs of the court and the nobility.

In the daily life and excesses of this bourgeois society, Molière found fertile material for his comedies. Molière became known as something of a reformer for critiquing practices of enforced marriage. He also managed to lampoon doctors, lawyers, and the aspirations of the entire upwardly mobile Third Estate.

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MOLIÈRE: PERFORMANCE HISTORY AT COURT THEATRE

2002 Scapin directed by Christopher Bayes
2000 The Learned Ladies directed by Charles Newell
1998 The School for Wives directed by László Marton
1997 Tartuffe directed by Daniel Fish
1995 The Misanthrope directed by Charles Newell
1986 Tartuffe directed by David Frank
1984 The Misanthrope directed by Munson Hicks
1981 The Miser directed by James O'Reilly
1975 The Doctor in Spite of Himself
1972 Tartuffe
1967 The Miser
1963 The Confounded Husband
1960 Scapin the Scoundrel
1958 The Imaginary Invalid
1955 The Affected Young Ladies
1955 The Forced Marriage
1955 The Doctor in Spite of Himself

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