LANCASTER, Pa. - Franklin & Marshall will play host to actor/playwright Timothy Mooney and his one-man show "Molière than Thou" on Tuesday, March 27 at 7 pm. in the Green Room Theatre on College Avenue. The show is Mooney's own adaptation of monologues from some of Molière's greatest works, and is free and open to the public. Mooney is the former artistic and executive director of Chicago’s Stage Two Theatre Company and, with that group, he organized and starred in several adaptations of Molière comedies. "Molière is not just a job," says Mooney, "it’s a mission for me." Although Molière is not as widely known as Shakespeare among the English-speaking public, he is still recognized as perhaps the world’s finest writer of comedy. Mooney’s 14 adaptations of Molière plays have created a new vision of the 17th century French playwright from coast to coast, and have been performed internationally. "Molière than Thou" finds Molière left without a cast, when, in true Molière style, all of his fellow performers suffer from food poisoning, a condition only exacerbated by medical attention. Rather than actually refund the precious box office income, Molière offers to perform a "greatest hits" of sorts, and leads the audience (which occasionally participates) through a hilarious succession of favorite speeches that trace his illustrious career.
Mooney, as Molière, performs routines from Tartuffe, Don Juan, The Doctor In Spite of Himself, The Precious Young Maidens, The Misanthrope and The School For Wives among others. "This gives Molière the perfect opportunity to explain his process of working on these plays, while managing to take a few deft stabs at some of his enemies: the doctors, the lawyers, and the sanctimonious hypocrites of the court of Louis XIV who would attack him throughout the years." In spite of his difficulties, Molière's status as the greatest French playwright continues to grow, and Mooney pays eloquent and convincing witness to his stature. During his career in the mid-seventeenth century, Molière established a professional theatre company, Le Teatre Illustre ("The Illustrious Theatre") that operates, even now, under the name Le Comedie Francais, France's premiere theatrical institution. He wrote plays mocking social manners and hypocrisy, and even made fun of his own personal and physical problems. In his final play, "The Imaginary Invalid," Molière played a character who pretended to be ill, so he could exploit his own illness as he coughed on stage. It was in a performance of this play that he collapsed onstage, and later died from what we now assume was tuberculosis. His fame and reputation firmly established, Molière continues to be studied, adapted and performed around the world. Mooney's many adaptations of Molière’s work are all written in a rhymed iambic pentameter that adds complex and fun layers of humor to the work. Mooney’s mission has been to bring a modern spark to the language of the work, creating new levels of witty and risqué double entendre that parallel Molière's original.
The performance is sponsored by the F&M French Department. For more information, contact Lisa Gasbarrone at 291-4031. For more information on Molière Than Thou, visit http://moliere-in-english.com/. -30- |
