MOLIÈRE To 19 December.
London.
MOLIÈRE or THE LEAGUE OF HYPOCRITES
by Mikhail Bulgakov translated by Michael Glenny.
Finborough Theatre above Finborough Pub 118 Finborough Road SW10 9ED To 19 December 2009.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat & Sun 3pm.
Runs 2hr One interval.
TICKETS: 0844 847 1652 (24hr no booking fee).
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk (reduced full-price tickets online).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 6 December.
Absolute power exposed with consummate skill.
The King - the Sun of France – who is The State – invites you to sit with him for lunch. No commoner, let alone a mere playwright, has ever been permitted to do this. You are fearful: might sitting down, might your first bite, be a signal for guards to arrest you for treason, or at the least lèse-majesté?
But it’s not. The insolence of office here, at least, has grown from the confidence of royal birth not the resentful poverty festering in a stolid peasant mind. Nor is that mind discoloured by paranoia, combined with security forces that give absolute power to a ruthless head of state.
For Louis XIV wasn’t Stalin. There again, it seems Stalin was barely Stalin where Mikhail Bulgakov was concerned; the writer should, by rights, have been gulagged, force-laboured and shot several times over for his actions, but wasn’t. This play was one of those actions, its Molière pursued, investigated and, by implication, hounded to death for his anti-establishment plays.
Bulgakov focuses on two: Tartuffe where criticism of clerical hypocrisy is wrapped up with an end that pours praise on the French king, and Don Juan, whose atheist seducer meets his downfall when he indulges in hypocrisy. Stalin’s terror-police become the clergy, witnesses led blindfold to their secret court, frightening compromising information from Molière’s theatre staff and acquiring it from a nobleman the playwright’s offended.
Size ought to defeat Blanche McIntyre’s thrusting revival, but doesn’t. Though the tiny Finborough can barely accommodate a stage, yet alone a stage, back-stage and a curtain, changing to other locations when required, it does thanks to designer Alex Marker’s experience with this space.
Justin Avoth’s Molière contrasts the sweep and command of the theatre where his commands as Maître are instantly carried out, and his braggadocio when the King supports him, with fear when church power hems him round, while others bustle or huddle at or against his authority. Only in David Pownall’s 1983 Master Class, where major Soviet composers cringe while Stalin smashes recordings of their works, has theatre so vividly shown the Dictator’s impact on artistic creation.
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin de Molière: Justin Avoh.
Jean-Jacques Bouton/Just Shoemaker/Brother Strength: Paul Brendan.
Philibert du Croisy/Louis XIV: Gyuri Sarossy.
Mariette Rivale/Woman: Emma Jerrold.
Madeleine Béjart: Elizabeth Moynihan.
Charlatan/Marquis de Lessac: Tom Davey.
Charles Varlet de la Grange/Marquis de Charron/Brother Faith: Mark Desebrock.
Armande Béjart: Antonia Kinlay.
Zacharie Moirron/Father Bartholomew: Kett Turton.
Marquis de Charron: Ben Warwick.
Director: Blanche McIntyre.
Designer: Alex Marker.
Lighting: Jon Winn.
Sound: Gemma Harrison.
Music: Plaster of Paris.
Costume: Penn O’Gara.
2009-12-12 08:12:41