Contemporary classic

Molière revived in a play that mocks social climbers

It seems there are some things we humans just never learn. Back in the 18th century, the great French playwright, Molière, like Shakespeare before him, spotted quirks and flaws that haven't disappeared. In La Malade imaginaire, he pokes fun at the self-centred hypochondriac. In the more sinister Tartuffe, he shows how easily a conniver can fool trusting people into believing he's a holy man when all he really wants is money, power and sex. In Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, soon to be staged (in French) by Théâtre français de Toronto, Molière turns his attention to our eternal wish to transform our lives into something better - and possibly beyond our grasp.
One has only to watch an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or The Swan to see that most of us secretly believe that, with the right kind of help, we could live the lives of the rich and beautiful. In Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, the middle-class monsieur Jourdain assembles a team around him (not unlike Queer Eye's Kyan, Ted, Thom, Jai and Carson) to advise him as to how he can turn himself into a man fit to associate with nobility. Problem is, unlike the Fab Five, Jourdain's advisors don't necessarily have his best interests at heart.
Director Diana Leblanc and designer Sarah Balleux have put their heads together to come up with a look for the show that suggests how contemporary monsieur Jourdain's foibles are. "We've kept the silhouette of the period, both on the set and in the costumes, but the fabric is very updated, and in fact there's a combination of hoop skirts and T-shirts," says Leblanc. "Some people wear brightly coloured sneakers, if that seems right for their character, and the men have the very fussy, almost kilt-like bottoms of the period, so that one is constantly aware that this sort of behaviour is ongoing."
"It was actually meant to be an entertainment at court filled with songs and corps de ballet, so the biggest challenge is to do it with nine actors," adds Leblanc. The production will use the composer Lully's original music for the show in a contemporary version created by Pat Clemence.
"We have people who sing extremely well, we have people who dance, so they turn into the ballet pupil rather than the corps de ballet, and the singing pupil rather than the chorus," she says. "We're using the people that we have, using the abilities that we have and trying to keep it all within our little universe that we've created."
Théâtre français de Toronto presents Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, April 15-30, upstairs at the Berkeley Street Theatre, 26 Berkeley Street. For tickets, call 416-534-6604 or 800-819-4981. In a first for the company, the performances of April 22, 27 and 28 will be surtitled in English through a grant from the Harbinger Foundation. On April 26, the TFT holds a fundraising event including cocktail dinner, show and post-performance coffee and dessert with the cast to support the surtitling of this show as well as Michel Tremblay's Impératif présent, coming up later this season. Tickets for the special event are $125.

Publication Date: 2005-04-03
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=5080