UFR LLASICLanguage, literature, performing arts, information and communication, journalism

Project

Led by Marc Douguet (senior lecturer in French literature), the "Updating the Classics" theatrical practice workshop brings together a group of ten literature and performing arts students (bachelor's and master's degrees) each week to work on a staging of Molière's Misanthrope. While remaining sensitive to the original context of the play, the aim is to reflect, from an up-to-date perspective, on the questions that old texts can raise for us, and on the procedures to be implemented to fully exploit their dramaturgical potential: we work on different techniques to seek accuracy and expressiveness in acting, gesture, posture and voice, which we will use to create an interpretation that is both original and sensitive to the stakes of the play. At the crossroads of creation, pedagogy and research, our work also extends and exploits various scientific questions concerning dramatic composition and theatrical diction.

The piece

Le Misanthrope boldly mixes registers: it's a comedy "of character", but it also contains farcical scenes, and its denouement is distinguished from traditional comedy denouements by its gravity and melancholy.
The play features two main characters. Célimène has a penchant for Alceste, and Alceste passionately loves Célimène, but everything is at odds between them, starting with their conception of love. Célimène, an extremely sociable and brilliant young woman, wants to retain a certain amount of freedom. Alceste, on the other hand, is jealous and possessive. On the other hand, his obsessive desire for sincerity drives him to refuse all the concessions that social life implies.
It's this couple, rather than the traditional opposition between Alceste and Philinte, that we'd like to place at the heart of the show. Beyond their differences, both raise the question of the boundary between the individual and society, and the contradictions between collective norms and individual principles or aspirations (the refusal of hypocrisy for one, the desire for independence and emancipation for the other).
Around these two characters evolves a fauna of ridiculous characters through which Molière paints a biting picture of humanity.

See the show

Distribution : 

Thibault Affre (L3 Performing Arts): costumes
Adam Boucard (L3 Performing Arts): play (Acaste)
Victorien Buisson (M2 Arts, literature and civilization): game (Alceste)
Lucie Cervantès (L3 Lettres modernes): play (Célimène)
Jordan Gadeau (L1 Performing Arts): play (Clitandre)
Aimie Jacques (L2 Lettres modernes): game (Éliante)
Axel Afonso (L1 Performing Arts): acting (Du Bois, Philinte)
Marie Rovecchio (L3 Lettres modernes): acting (Arsinoé), make-up
Madeleine Voleau (L1 Lettres modernes-Histoire de l'art et archéologie): piano and cello
Luliia Zelinskaia (L2 Performing Arts): director's assistant, sound and lighting manager
  Event supported by the Lettres department of the LLASIC UFR, the H3S faculty and the UGA Cultural Service.