Characters: 9 male, 4 female

Scenery: Interior

This translation of Moliere's classic depiction of hypocrisy in action was done for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

"The assumption behind this ferociously brilliant production is that Tartuffe is much too serious and alarming a work to be insulated behind any English equivalent of French classical style. The greatest compliment I can bestow on Hampton's translation is that...you hardly notice it. Plain, perfectly phrased blank verse does the job."-London Times

Farce / Characters: 8 males, 4 females

Scenery: Interior

The famous hypochondriac in this classic farce not only complains of a million imaginary ills, but also of his astronomical medical bills. If he marries his daughter to a doctor, he reasons, he will have free medical care. He chooses a double-Latin talking numbskull without consulting the daughter who is already smitten by another. The inventive maid exposes the doctyor and his father as charlatans and demonstrates to the master that his second wife loves his money, not him. Thus are truth and love triumphant and all troubles, real and imaginary, relieved by laughter.

Such Foolish Affected Ladies/ Tartuffe/ The Misanthrope/ The Doctor Despite Himself/The Would-be Gentleman/ Those Learned Ladies

‘Let’s not worry about the manners of the age and make more allowance for human nature. Let’s judge it less severely and look more kindly on its faults’

The six plays collected in this volume illustrate Moliere’s broad range of comic devices, from satire and farce to slapstick and sophisticated wit and wordplay. In Tartuffe and The Doctor Despite Himself, Moliere shows us the foolishness of those taken in by a religious hypocrite and a bogus physician, while Such Foolish Affected Ladies and Those Learned Ladies are a humorous attack on the excessive refinement and pedantry of the Parisian smart set. And in The Misanthrope and The Would-Be Gentleman Moliere warn us of the dangers of obsession and intolerance.  Exposing duplicity, mocking snobbery and revealing the horrors of hypocrisy, Moliere’s plays are masterly studies in the absurdities of human nature.
 
All of the humour and panache of the original French has been preserved in John Wood’s translation. In his introduction, David Coward discusses the reception each play received when it was first performed and how this has changed over the centuries. This edition also includes a chronology, bibliography and notes.

Molière (1622-73) combined all the traditional elements of comedy – wit, slapstick, spectacle and satire – with a deep understanding of character to create richly sophisticated dramas which have always delighted audiences.

Most are built around dangerously deluded and obsessive heroes such as The Miser who threaten to blight the lives of those around them. In his first great triumph, The School for Wives (newly translated for this edition), an ageing domestic tyrant is foiled in his plans to wed his young ward. Although this was fiercely criticized for mocking the ‘sacred’ institution of marriage – to which Molière hit back with a play defending his aims and techniques, The School for Wives Criticized – it was the alleged atheism of his dark, subversive version of Don Juan which struck the blackest note. Finally, in The Hypochondriac, the terminally ill author produced a hilarious exposé of the ways doctors use medical mumbo-jumbo to fleece their patients.

Like Shakespeare, Molière was a true man of the theatre whose comedies blend sharp insight into human nature with an unerring sense of what would work on stage and make people laugh. All his greatest achievements are included here and in the accompanying Penguin Classics volume, The Misanthrope and Other Plays.