Molière

"""He's a beast I tell you - a real animal"" What happens when you've lived only for pleasure, and you finally run out of time? When you've broken every promise, outraged every decency and slept your way through half of Europe - where do you turn as the clock starts to tick towards midnight? Neil Bartlett's new translation brings out all the dark undercurrents of Moliere's wickedly black comedy."

L'Avare (1666) is Moliere's great satire on materialism, a funny yet sophisticated story of cunning, guile and double-dealing, not only by the Miser himself, but also by the Miser's family and servants. First performed at the Festival Theatre, Chichester in 1995, it was revived at the Salisbury Playhouse in April 2001. Includes L'Etourdi (1653), the first, the fastest, and perhaps the funniest of Moliere's verse comedies, in a new and highly entertaining translation.

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price Moliere's comic masterpiece about an irreclaimable hypocrite - one of the most famous French plays of all time. The pious Tartuffe is lodging with Orgon and his family, ingratiating himself with both his host and his host's mother to such a degree that both are blinded to his true – rather less virtuous – designs. Like marrying Orgon's daughter Mariane, whilst seducing his wife, Elmire. This English version of Tartuffe, in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series, is translated and introduced by Martin Sorrell.

"The religious fraud Tartuffe has wormed his way into the affections and household of rich merchant, Orgon, with pantomime piety and counterfeit zeal. So comprehensively has he hoodwinked Orgon that he looks set to succeed in driving away the son, marrying the daughter, seducing the wife and imprisoning Orgon. Moliere's classic satire was denounced on its first performance as a sacrilegious outrage and banned from further public view. Only after petition to Louis XIV was the ban lifted, and the play's trenchant mockery of human frailties has ensured its popularity ever since."

Don Juan, the "Seducer of Seville," originated as a hero-villain of Spanish folk legend, is a famous lover and scoundrel who has made more than a thousand sexual conquests. One of Moliere's best-known plays, Don Juan was written while Tartuffe was still banned on the stages of Paris, and shared much with the outlawed play. Modern directors transform Don Juan in every new era, as each director finds something new to highlight in this timeless classic. Richard Wilbur's flawless translation will be the standard for generations to come, as have his translations of Moliere's other plays. Witty, urbane, and poetic in its prose, Don Juan is, most importantly, as funny now as it was for audiences when it was first presented.

The principal aim of this edition is to provide a reliable version of the text of Le Mariage forcé which can be used by students and scholars of 17th-century theatre. Le Mariage forcé, a little-known work, is a particularly interesting example of the comédie-ballet genre as it was written and performed by Molière and his troupe in three different versions over a period of eight years. First performed in front of Louis XIV and his court, complete with music, ballet and singing, the play also marks Molière’s first work in which Louis XIV took an active role. The book includes all the texts which existed in Molière’s lifetime, and examines the development of the genre in the years from 1664 when it was first performed, to 1672 when new songs and balletic interludes were added. This is a volume in the Textes littéraires/Exeter French Texts. The text, introduction and essential notes are all in French.

I declare I cannot rest anywhere; my mind is troubled by a thousand cares, thinking how to contrive, both indoors and out, so as to frustrate the attempts of this coxcomb. With what assurance the traitress stood the sight of me! She is not a whit moved by all that she has done, and though she has brought me within an inch of the grave, one could swear, to look at her, that she had no hand in it.

" First performed in Paris in 1666, The Misanthrope is one of Moliere's great comic masterpieces. Exasperated by the corruption of society, the cynical but noble Alceste wrestles with his love for the wordly and coquettish Celimene. This version of The Misanthrope was first performed at the Piccadilly Theatre, London, by The Peter Hall Company, starring Michael Pennington, Elaine Paige, and Peter Bowles. Ranjit Bolt has translated many of the world's masterpieces of theatre including works by Sophocles, Goldoni, Corneille, Beaumarchais and Brecht. His highly successful translation of Moliere's The School for Wives (The Peter Hall Company) ran in the West End for six months."

"Includes the plays The Hypochondriac, George Dandin and Scapin Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, dit Moliere (1622-1673) was originally intended for a career at court. His legal training was to stand him in good stead as his plays often aroused the anger and hatred of many prominent social groups including the medical profession and the clergy. Moliere was continually surrounded by controversy and his works were often banned. This volume contains new versions of Moliere's plays by distinguished translators Ranjit Bolt and Gerard Murphy. The Hypochondriac was Moliere's last play. He himself took the title role in the first production on the fourth performance was seized by a coughing fit and died, ending a brilliant yet turbulent career thathad lasted for over thirty years. With a foreword by Nicholas Dromgoole."

Widely regarded as Moliere’s masterpiece, Le Misanthrope has nevertheless unsettled audiences and critics for the time of its publication in 166. Moving away from traditional models of comedy where characters have an unambiguous function it focuses on the figure of the misanthrope whose role is challengingly double – his unsparing social critique suggests both the incisiveness of the satirist and the bad humour of the misfit. In its representation of a society where no character has absolute authority the comedy involves the audience in a serious reconsideration of its own values and assumptions. This new edition explores Le Misanthrope as a text and play. In his introduction, Jonathan Mallinson examines the interlocking levels of comedy apparently both in the play’s literary texture and in the original performance. It then discusses the history of its reception and shows how the play has been constantly adapted to the different moral social or aesthetic values of changing times. A detailed critical commentary offers another method of reading the text, analysing the sophistication of Moliere’s comic writing and the theatrical possibiltieis it embodies.

In Moliere's famous satire, Tartuffe, a religious hypocrite, tries to get title to his friend's estate by sending him to jail. The play proved both controversial and influential. In this student edition the French text is supplemented by a useful English introduction and notes on the text.