The Theatre in 17th Century France II: Molière

Molière relief on the wall of the Comédie Française

Like Racine and Corneille, Molière is difficult translate, but his work somehow transcends this language barrier.  Second only to Shakespeare, Molière’s work is still performed regularly throughout the western world.  When I was on a trip through Europe in the spring of 1999 I saw two productions of The Miser, one in its original French language, another in Czech.  And I just missed productions of other Molière plays in German and Italian.  Who IS this masked man?

      

He was born Jean Baptiste Poquelin (1622-1673). Many actors used stage names, often one word names back then, especially the 

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French: Rachel in the nineteenth century, Arletty in mid-twentieth century, many more recently Miou-Miou; and very recently this trend seems to be everywhere, though more often in musicians than actors: Madonna? Prince? Pink? Molière was born into an upper middle class world, went to school with boys from prominent families and studied law, after which it was presumed that he would take over his father’s upholstery business, more lucrative than you might think. One of his father’s clients was the king. 

      

Instead, Molière fell in love with the actress Madeleine Béjart, who ran a prominent, family-based theatrical troupe.  Madeleine 

apparently taught Molière the ropes, in the bedroom as well as in theatre!  He joined the troupe as an actor in 1643, even helped Madeleine reorganize it as “The Illustrious Theatre.” Unfortunately they failed when they performed in Paris and also when they went on tour...less than illustrious!

      

Still they continued to tour and managed to stay alive in the provinces, playing tragedies by Corneille, Italian style comedies, and increasingly, short comic pieces written by Molière.  They gradually got back on their feet and in 1658 they returned to Paris, played before the king and his brother, who were both so impressed that the brother of the king offered the troupe his patronage and protection.  They’d made it!

     

Molière continued to write and act in plays with Madeleine and her company, and increasingly the troupe became identified with Molière, whose comedies were hilarious but also controversial. In his plays, Molière offended important people and groups, and he made enemies.  He was very fortunate in that the king remained his friend for the most part, and (as much as Louis could be) his fan. 

      

In 1662 Molière married Armande Béjart, Madeleine’s MUCH younger sister. Molière was 40, Madeleine 43, Armande 19; not

the last time a May/December romance has flared up, often in the entertainment industry. Rumors spread that Armande was  not Madeleine’s sister, but her daughter – and that Molière was her father! While there is some scholarly argument on this subject, recent scholars, including Molière’s biographer Virginia Scott, have become convinced that Madeleine WAS Armande’s mother, but fathered by another of her lovers, not Molière. Whew!  It’s not as though similar things don’t still happen!  Woody Allen married the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow. He fell in love with the daughter while in a long-term relationship with Farrow. A-hem! That’s not the only comparison you could draw between Molière and Woody Allen, both of whom wrote clever, and often satirical comic pieces, and both of whom starred in their own vehicles...but the slanderous gossip about incest is much more fun, n’est-ce pas?

      

In 1664 Molière angered powerful churchmen in France (and if you don’t think churchmen were powerful, just think of Cardinal 

Richelieu) through his play Tartuffe.  Indeed, despite the support of the king, the play had to be re-written twice before it was finally, if grudgingly, accepted in 1669.  He had angered other important groups before, but this particular offense against the church would come back, nearly literally, to haunt him.

   

Meanwhile, through the 1660s and early 70s Molière continued to be successful, and the troupe became one of the finest in France.  Madeleine faded somewhat into the background during these years Sadly she has not been given her fair share of credit by historians for the early years when she ran the troupe and essentially taught Molière. She continued, however, to play the important roles of the waspish comic maids he wrote so cleverly, while Armande shone in such major leading roles as Elmire in Tartuffe and Celimene in The Misanthrope.

      

In 1673 Molière was in the first days of performances in his latest (and last) play, The Imaginary Invalid, when, in one of those

mighty theatrical ironies, he collapsed on stage and died shortly after.  This is not the first or last time an actor would die “with his boots on,” to use the usual expression, but to be really and critically ill while playing a hypochondriac.  Much more recently Irene Ryan collapsed on stage and died shortly after while doing Pippin, and while singing, I’m told, the equally ironic song “Oh, it’s time to start living...!”

Honore Daumier's take on the Imaginary Invalid

Here’s where the “ghost” of the Tartuffe controversy came back to haunt Molière: He was denied a church burial because of the ancient law we learned about in Roman theatre history. The Council of Carthage would not allow actors to receive the sacraments.  Since classical times this law was only invoked when the church decided to make a special point of it, and in the case of 

Molière's SECOND, rather posh tomb in Pere Lachais when I visited in November 2011

Molière they were determined to. Priests were called to the dying man’s side to hear his confession and to hear him repent that he had ever been an actor, but they arrived very late, in fact too late. It was thanks only to Armande’s pleas to the king that his majesty allowed Molière to be buried on sacred ground, but hurriedly, without ceremony, and at night.  Even a king must choose his battles.  Now of course Molière has a huge monument of a tomb in Pere Lachaise.  I wonder if he’s laughing from his grave?

A word here on theatrical life in Paris, mid-seventeenth century.  It could be a rather nasty world.  Molière had indeed made powerful enemies outside the theatre, but his “friends” in the theatre were often backstabbing climbers, including, sadly, Racine.  Molière’s company faithfully produced Racine’s tragedies, but Racine transferred one of his plays to another company without even informing Molière, and he even carried off Molière’s leading tragic actress, Mme du Parc, to star in it!  Of course it’s only fair to

An lder slightly "sadder but wiser" Molière

 say that Racine had enemies of his own, who sabotaged the opening of Phèdre by heavily advertising and opening a play in a rival theatre on the same night -- the audiences flocked to the more heavily advertised play, and Phèdre failed. Of course Racine, like Molière, may also be laughing from his grave.

      

Molière’s child bride Armande had numerous affairs while they were married, but after his death Armande remained faithful in her fashion, and certainly did more than anyone else to hold the company together. She was stabbed in the back (well, not literally) by another of Molière’s “friends” and theatrical collaborators, Jean-Baptiste Lully, the most important composer in Paris at that time.  As soon as he heard of Molière’s death, Lully made political moves that forced Armande and the company out of the theatre that had been theirs for years, and took it for himself. Not a very pleasant look at collaboration and collegiality, eh?

      

But enough of Dr Jack’s seventeenth century gossip! Molière’s plays endure no matter how scandalous was Parisian backstage life.

      

Molière is as good an example as Racine of how to follow very tricky Neoclassic rules and still make great plays.  Most of 

Molière’s plays follow the unities, in fact he’s very good at making

 use of the unity of time to heighten suspense.  Early in Tartuffe, Orgon tells his daughter Mariane that she must marry Tartuffe. As the situation escalates, Molière raises the stakes by making Orgon so angry he says, in effect “Not only will you marry Tartuffe…you’ll marry him tonight!” The unity is observed and the drama is heightened.

      

Molière’s plays teach lessons.  He identifies certain traits that were all too frequent in his day and holds them up to ridicule. Everyone laughed (well, nearly everyone) at his misers, his old men panting over young women, his hypochondriacs and the doctors that are all too willing to “cure” them.  In this way Molière sets up the manners of his age to be examined and judged via his plays. 
 There’s always a character, known as the raissoneur, the man of reason, who repeatedly advises the lead characters how they should deal with their situation. Of course the lead characters, usually UN-reasonable, never listen and that’s part of the comedy.  Thus Molière creates a “comedy of manners” that has remained popular not just because it’s funny, but because how one conducted oneself in the seventeenth century is surprisingly similar to how one conducts oneself in the twenty-first.  Molière’s verbal style is often witty and elevated, but he combines this rather high comic style with some of the most lowbrow techniques of commedia dell’arte and medieval farce to create a comedy that plays to all audiences.

      

Some examples: In The School for Wives, Arnolphe, a middle-aged man, has made the perfect plan.  He put his ward, Agnes, into a 

Brian Bedford as Arnolphe
Bedford has made a career
of playing characters written
by Molière 

convent when she was a little girl, and has provided for her there -- so that on the day she leaves the convent, he’ll be the only man she has ever seen or thought of, and he’ll immediately marry her!  Of course on the way from the convent to Arnolphe’s house, Agnes sees the handsome young Horace. He sees her and of course they fall instantly in love!  The rest of the play is spent as the clever servants and Arnolphe’s friend, the raissoneur, get the young people married and Arnolphe is foiled!

      

In The Miser, Harpagon arranges marriages for his children based solely on financial arrangements favorable to himself, then decides to marry the young woman his son is in love with! Servants, some clever, some stupid,intervene and in the end the young people all marry the ones they love. Harpagon too is blissfully wed…to his money box!  

Nigel Hawthorne as Harpagon

This play, by the way, is based on the Roman writer Plautus’s Pot of Gold.  Molière frequently plundered from the ancients. He also wrote a play called Amphytrion modeled on Plautus; (Plautus’ play was also the basis for Cole Porter’s musical Out of this World in 1950).  Molière’s Scapin is based on Terence’s Phormio, and his School for Wives is taken from Terence’s Adelphoi.  So you see, “De nobis, fabula narratur!”

In Tartuffe, one of Molière’s greatest plays, the title charactere is a man who uses Christian piety for his own greed. The hopelessly

 stubborn Orgon is gullible enough not only to believe the Tartuffe, but to nearly lose his family, friends and fortune as a result. In what is essentially a language play, we get a good dose of low farce as well. The famous scene in which Orgon hides under the table while Tartuffe attempts to seduce his wife ON the table. is based on medieval farce and commedia improvisations.

Tartuffe updated!

The Misanthrope is one of the only plays he wrote that doesn’t end happily for the lead characters, with a plotline unusually complex for Molière.  In it, Alceste, honest to the point of the ridiculous, is in love with Celimene, the biggest flirt and most artful liar in 

Paris!  What a match! In a series of brilliant scenes we see him being brutally honest, while she convinces every man who worships her that he’s her favorite.  In the end Celimene is found out and all the men who loved her now snub her. Her fashionable life in Paris is over!  Alceste alone proclaims that he loves her still, and that he will marry her – IF she’ll leave Paris and its hypocrisy and to live alone with him on an island.  Though her reputation is ruined and though she probably DOES love him, she refuses, he rushes out, and the curtain falls!

      

As I noted, after the author’s death Lully took the theatre away from Molière’s company. Armande and the other actors found another theatre, which in 1680 the king honored with a title, The Comédie Française, and endowed it with a subsidy that continues to today.  It is the world’s first “National” theatre and it is still known today as La Maison du Molière.