We accept PayPal, Visa & Mastercard
through our secure checkout.
|
Moliere's The Learned Ladies (Thomas)
Moliere's The Learned Ladies (Thomas)
|
Author: Freyda Thomas Publisher: Samuel French Format: Softcover # of Pages: 140 Pub. Date: 2015 ISBN-10: 0573704643 ISBN-13: 9780573704642 Cast Size: 6 female, 4 male
|
About
the Play:
The
Learned Ladies (English language version of Les Femmes
Savantes) is a full-length comedy by Molière,
translated and adapted by Freyda Thomas.
Henriette and Clitandre, are two young people in love who, in order
to marry, must successfully navigate Henriette's demanding and
overeducated family. With the help of Henriette's father and uncle,
along with a host of saucy servants who favour the
marriage, the couple must convince the rest of the family that the
match is a good one. This
zany web of love stories, farcical romps and battle of the sexes
keeps true to Moliere's original while providing a smorgasbord of
modern treats for contemporary audiences.
The
Learned Ladies is a hilarious contemporary re-imagining of
Moliere's penultimate play. As the story
unfolds it is evident the household of Chrysale and his wife
Philamente is in absolute disarray. Philamente has decided to
dedicate herself and her home to the "life of the mind",
the pursuit of noble thought and the practice of intellectual rigour
pushing aside her "wifely duties." Chrysale simply wants
his dinner and to assert his place as head of the family. Enter
Trissotin, a mediocre poet with a lot of sex appeal and little
literary talent, who all but seduces the matronly Philamente,
determined to be at the forefront of the movement. Equally determined
to marry him off to her younger daughter (who just wants to marry her
sweetheart Lycandre and raise children), she bullies her meek husband
into tacitly agreeing, and the machinations that follow between
family members, visiting poets and maids who refuse to learn proper
French are predictably and delightfully Molière. Originally produced
in 17th Century France, this updated translation has kept Molière's
characters' names, French of course, but was written to be performed
in a stylized 20th-century setting. Just about any time between 1910
and the present will work. The familiar "Voice of Reason",
present in almost every Moliere play and always a male, is for the
first time, Female. The language, although in verse, is fun and
modern rhyming verse and needs a setting and style conducive to its
tone. Flavouring her rhymed couplets with contemporary anachronisms,
adapter Freyda Thomas
has devised a version that amalgamates styles and periods
entertainingly while maintaining Molière's
classic wit and wisdom in this rambunctious comedy about upper class
pretension.
Les
Femmes Savantes
was first performed in 1672 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in
Paris. Freyda
Thomas's
contemporary adaptation of The
Learned Ladies
premiered in 1991 by the Classic Stage Company at CSC Repertory
Theatre (CSC) in New York City. Since
then the play was performed at American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in
San Francisco in 1993, with many productions mounted by high schools,
colleges, and community theatres.
Cast:
6 female, 4 male
What
people say:
"The
show's most consistently enlivening presence is that of translator
and adapter Freyda Thomas, who translates the
playwright's alexandrine verse of 1672 into vital musical forms
marked by crisp and unexpected rhymes, period echoes and cheerfully
clanging anachronisms….Thomas harmonizes the classical and the
contemporary to make us hear Moliere's wit in an appealing new key."
— San Francisco Chronicle
"Flavoring
her rhymed couplets with contemporary anachronism, adapter Freyda
Thomas has devised a pop version of Moliere that amalgamates styles
and periods entertainingly. As a result, Ms. Thomas serves the ends
of the 17th century French classic and the latter day spectator. The
outcome is general satisfaction and general merriment." —
Christian Science Monitor
"Thomas'
modernisms smartly put the satire's emphasis on the pomposity rather
than the feminism of the Precieuse Movement." — Variety
"The
show's most consistently enlivening presence is that of translator
and adapter Freyda Thomas, who translates the
playwright's alexandrine verse of 1672 into vital musical forms
marked by crisp and unexpected rhymes, period echoes and cheerfully
clanging anachronisms….Thomas harmonizes the classical and the
contemporary to make us hear Moliere's wit in an appealing new key."
— New York Times
About
the Playwright:
Molière
was the stage name of Jean Baptiste
Molière (1622-1673). His plays achieved great success and elicited
enormous controversy with their religious irreverence.
Freyda
Thomas is an American actor, playwright and translator who has
been, at one time or another in her life, a college professor, a
singer, a big band vocalist, and a high school teacher.
|
|
|
|