Part Four

Molière at the Palais Royal: the Legacy of 17C French dramatic literature

David Thomas

Part Four Images

After its inheritance by the royal family and their ensuing political troubles, the grand Palais Royal theatre eventually fell into a state of disrepair. In 1660, soon after attaining his majority, King Louis XIV granted the use of the theatre to the accomplished company of actors led by Molière [SLIDE 1], who had recently arrived in Paris after many years touring the provinces.

Molière had developed a style of presentation during his long years of provincial touring that depended for its effect more on acting than staging. His approach to character depended on the stock characters of the commedia dell’arte tradition [SLIDE 2]; the pairs of young lovers, foolish fathers, the quick-witted servants etc.

His players had lived and worked together, travelling extensively in difficult circumstances, for thirteen years. They could be relied on to provide superb timing, physical agility and expressiveness, lively banter and repartee as well as effective verbal and non-verbal interaction. They used fine costumes but little scenery. Costumes were not difficult to transport on the mules or carts at their disposal; scenery was almost impossible to transport given the limited resources available to them.

Theirs was very much a physical, actors’ theatre, with plenty of animated body language and exaggerated facial expressions. The general aim of a Molière comedy is to satirise behaviour that departs from a rational norm: his major characters are therefore obsessive and irrational in their responses. In his plays, one finds a fascinating gallery of human folly [SLIDES 3-5]: there are misers, hypochondriacs, misanthropes and religious fanatics. While these bear the brunt of Molière’s satire, the servants (following the traditions of classical Roman comedy) provide a rational, down-to-earth antedote to the follies of the major characters.

There is also normally an homme raisonnable – a rational man – who shows the way that judgement can be used to control fantasies, obsessions and idées fixes. Molière assumes a shared set of values between these rational figures and members of the audience.

The discrepancy between this rational middle way and the excesses of those characters in the grip of some obsessive fantasy provides the basis for the laughter generated in performances of Molière’s plays.

Molière also presumes close contact between actors and audience so that members of the audience can read the facial commentaries made by one character on the behaviour of another. Sometimes props play a crucial role in the action (such as the Miser’s cash box) or furniture (such as the table which Tartuffe uses to seduce Orgon’s wife) [SLIDE 6].

But stage settings can often be reduced to a stock interior, mirroring the palais à volonté of neoclassic tragedy [SLIDE 7]. Molière offers images of timeless human folly rather than examples that derive from a specific society. This is why his plays have remained popular ever since they were written. Their satire of folly linked with an appeal to the common sense of all audiences has proved to be a formula that has lost none of its original attraction.