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“Much Depends on the Acting”: The Original Cast of Le Misanthrope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Roger W. Herzel
Roger W. Herzel*
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Albany
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Abstract

The printed text of Le Misanthrope is only a partial record of Molière’s creation. Molière wrote his plays to be performed, not to be read, and he tailored each role in his plays to the individual talents of the particular actor who would play the role. In the original production of Le Misanthrope, each actor’s performance was part of an intricate web of contrasts and balances. Molière himself played Alceste; as in all his plays, his acting style, while unmistakably comic, occupied a middle ground between the grotesque style of one group of actors and the elegant polish of the actor who played Philinte.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 95 , Issue 3 , May 1980 , pp. 348 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1980

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References

Notes

1 Here and throughout, all translations of French texts, unless specifically credited to Richard Wilbur, are my own.

2 For a survey of criticism of the play, see Francis L. Lawrence, “Our Alceste or Molière's? A Problem in Interpretation,” Revue des Langues Vivantes, 38 (1972), 477–82.

3 See Maurice Descotes, Les Grands Rôles du théâtre de Molière (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960), pp. 97–113.

4 Jules Lemaître, Impressions de théâtre (Paris, 1896), i, 37, as quoted in Lawrence, p. 479.

5 See Gustave Michaut, Les Luttes de Molière (Paris, 1925; rpt. Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1968), pp. 2832, and Jacques Schérer, “Réflexions sur Armande Béjart,” Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France, 69 (1969), 393–403.

6 Le Monde Français, Dec. 1947, as quoted in Descotes, p. 111.

7 In the production that toured the United States in 1979, which I did not see, Descrières was replaced in the role of Alceste by François Beaulieu. The casting of the other major roles, except Eliante, remained the same. Judging from the reviews in the American press, Beaulieu's performance gave a much different tone to the role of Alceste and to the production as a whole.

8 Gabriel Guéret, La Promenade de Saint-Cloud, ed. Georges Monval, Nouvelle Collection Moliéresque, No. 36 (1888; rpt. Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1968). p. 59. This judgment was echoed by Perrault and Segrais.

9 Charles Perrault, Les Hommes illustres (1696), as quoted in Georges Mongrédien, Recueil des textes et des documents du XVIIe siècle relatifs à Molière (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1965), ii, 702.

10 Neuf-Villenaine, Arguments for Scenes vi and xii, in first (pirated) edition of Sganarelle (Paris: Ribou, 1660); rpt. as variants in Molière, Œuvres complètes, ed. Georges Couton (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1971), i, 1229, 1233. All quotations from Molière are from this edition, hereafter abbreviated OC.

11 Bray, Molière, homme de théâtre (1954; rpt. Paris: Mercure de France, 1972), p. 153.

12 Rpt. in OC, ii, 139. De Vise's reporting seems to be more accurate than Robinet's plodding, one-sided praise of Alceste (“Lettre en vers,” 12 June 1666; rpt. in Mongrédien, i, 266). Robinet prevents us from imagining that Alceste was originally played as a buffoon; but de Visé is at pains to make the same point, while also insisting that Alceste was an entirely proper object of laughter.

13 Richard Wilbur, trans., The Misanthrope and Tartuffe, by Molière (New York: Harcourt, 1965), p. 59.

14 For a tabular summary of the original casting of Molière's plays and the personal repertories of each of his actors, as well as for a general account of how this information was established, see Roger W. Herzel, “Molière's Actors and the Question of Types,” Theatre Survey, 16 (1975), 1–24. For a specific discussion of the evidence relating to Le Misanthrope, see Herzel, “Molière's Actors: A Reconstruction of the Original Casting of the Plays of Molière,” Diss. Cornell 1974, pp. 97–100.

15 Claude and François Parfaict, Histoire du theatre françois depuis son origine jusqu'à présent (Paris, 1745–49; rpt. New York: Burt Franklin, 1968), xiii, 296–98.

16 Moore, Molière: A New Criticism (Garden City, ?.Y.: Doubleday, 1962), p. 79.

17 Robinet, “Lettre en vers,” 20 Dec. 1665; rpt. in Parfaict, ix, 389–90.

18 [Mlle Poisson], “Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du théâtre, et spécialement à la vie des plus célèbres comédiens françois,” Mercure de France, May 1738 (rpt. Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1968), p. 832.

19 Du Tralage, as quoted in Parfaict, xii, 472–73.

20 Robinet, “Lettre en vers,” 12 June 1666; rpt. in Mongrédien, i, 266–67.

21 Reproduced in color in Sylvie Chevalley, Molière en son temps (Geneva: Minkoff, 1973), p. 145.

22 Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1957), p. 6.

23 William Leonard Schwartz, “Molière's Theater in 1672–1673: Light from Le Registre d'Hubert” PMLA, 56 (1941), 417.

24 Research for this article was made possible by a research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and a grant from the Research Foundation of the State University of New York.