The year 2022 celebrates the 400th anniversary of Molière’s birth.
Molière, the most universal of our writers.
Molière, the actor, the director and the troupe leader.
Molière, the man who became a legend of the Grand Siècle of the Sun King.
Molière, a name forever bound to the art of theatre.
The story
Pursued by furious spectators, a theatre troupe takes refuge in a provincial hotel.
Worry soon mixes with incomprehension and crystallises around an urgent question: “but what does this audience want?”.
The incongruous appearance of famous lines from Molière in the conversations suddenly offers itself as a manifest sign. And what if The Bourgeois Gentleman, Tartuffe, The Miser, The Scatterbrain or even The Doctor in Spite of Himself provided the answer?
The troupe gets to work …
Starting from the reality of the stage and of acting, the show revisits some important scenes from the repertoire of Molière, while shedding light on artistic practice and the conditions of the life of a troupe on tour.
As theatre offers a multitude of possibilities, we will show the historical side and reconstruct it, but also free ourselves from this glorious past by offering a purely contemporary treatment of the witty lines of the iconic author of classical theatre.
Our project also brings together incidental music, notably that composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marc-Antoine Charpentier, among others, which is above all linked to the comedy-ballets, the entertainments written by Molière at the King’s commission.
In works such as The Bourgeois Gentleman or The Imaginary Invalid, Molière brilliantly fuses comedy, music and dance, and it seems important to us to give 21st-century audiences the chance to hear this singular music, representative of an era when the performing arts were offered in many forms — music, song, dance, declamation and gesture … but also to offer this music a contemporary reinterpretation with the addition of modern instruments, electric and electronic.
WRITING AND DIRECTION
Jean Louis ROQUEPLAN
ACTOR DIRECTION
Carole Baud
CAST
Lionel Alés
Marie Aubert
Zahïa Bensaïdani
Véronique Dumoulin
Christophe Huet
Lisa Lévèque
Jean-Louis Roqueplan
Medhi Smile
MUSIC
Musicians:
Medhi Smile
Florent Ville
And the baroque orchestra of the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Départemental – L’Atelier des Arts
Directed by: Richard Angénieux and Raphaël Brunon
LIGHTING DESIGNER
Thibault Thellère
COSTUMES
Pauline Marion in partnership with the Association du Roi de l’Oiseau.
CO-PRODUCTION
Theatre company LE PETIT ATELIER
Cie L’ENVOLANTE
Cie LATITUDS
THÉÂTRE DE L’ALAUDA