Word: moli
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Beautiful as it is, the theater complex is only as good as those who work inside, and in that respect Denver is particularly lucky. Almost at once, Call has fashioned a true repertory, capable of switching between Molière's The Learned Ladies and Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle in the Stage and Orson Welles' Moby Dick - Rehearsed in the Space. Performances are uniformly excellent, and the only quibble is Call's choice of plays. Molière is always Molière. But all Brecht is not good Brecht, and it would take...
...there that Moliére (Philippe Caubère) learned his craft and began writing the first of his farces, which were to make him France's greatest comic playwright. His troupe returned to Paris and gained the patronage of the young Louis XIV, who was then a mere sparkler compared with the great Sun King he was to become. Like all satirists, Moliére wrote from anger and disappointment, however, and his sharp attacks on the reigning conventions infuriated the clergy and its conservative supporters. Even Louis had to bow to the pressure, and Tartuffe, perhaps...
According to this biography, Moliére was as unhappy with his own life as he was with the life he saw around him. He rejected the aging Madeleine (Joséphine Derenne) and married her coquettish younger sister Armande (Brigitte Catillon), 20 years his junior. Armande, in turn, made him a cuckold and a figure of ridicule for his enemies. The king withdrew much of his support, and toward the end of his life Moliére felt that his talent had dried up. He contracted tuberculosis, and one night, after playing the lead in his last play...
That outline should indicate what fine television this might have been. What is lacking in Moliére, however, is Moliére. Caubère has done his best, but Ariane Mnouchkine, who both wrote and directed the series, has given neither him nor the viewer anything very solid. The star is the camera, and Mnouchkine has indulged its every whim. Most shots are held too long, and the only explanation behind some scenes has to be that they are very pretty...
Many are gorgeous, and Moliére succeeds as spectacle if not as drama. There is a wonderful celebration in the royal gardens, with fireworks and dancing fountains. Throughout there is a keen sense of place, of dirt next to grandeur, the greasy, lice-infested hair underneath those magnificent 17th century wigs. But Mnouchkine the writer has failed Mnouchkine the director. Without the mind to engage it, the eye inevitably wanders. She has provided a rich and enticing dessert but neglected the main course...