Molière

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price Molière's comedy about the notorious womaniser, in a fresh and performable translation by Kenneth McLeish. Set in Sicily, Moliere's play retells the famous myth of Don Juan, the womaniser with no morals and a scorn for religion. It charts his relationship with his servant Sganarelle, his romantic philandering, his false conversion and his ultimate punishment. Don Juan was first performed in 1665 in the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, Paris, with Molière playing the role of Sganarelle. This version in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series is translated and introduced by Kenneth McLeish.

"Moliere, undoubtedly one of the greatest writers of comedy in the history of theatre, won enormous success for The School for Wives (L'Ecole des Femmes) in Paris in 1662; yet this highly popular play, satirising ridiculous male attitudes to women, aroused as much hostility as critical acclaim. Arnolphe, a narrow-minded merchant hoping to marry his young ward, Agnes, is obsessed with the fear of being made a cuckold. But all his artful plans serve only to speed him towards the fate he is so desperate to avoid. Moliere himself first played the hapless merchant, and this believable character in an all too believable predicament both startled and delighted his public. This highly successful translation of The School for Wives, directed by Sir Peter Hall, ran in the West End for six months."

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price Molière's satire of intellectual snobbery, in a translation first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. In Molière's 1672 play Les Femmes Savantes, Chrysale's daughter Henriette wants to marry Clitandre, but her mother wishes her to marry Trissotin, a poet with lofty aspirations. For the women of Chrysale's household are obsessed with learning and culture of the most pretentious kind, and are oblivious to Trissotin's true nature. This English version of Molière's The Learned Ladies, in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series, is translated by A. R. Waller, and introduced by Kenneth McLeish. It was first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, in July 1996, in a production directed by Steven Pimlott.

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price Molière's classic farce, Le Malade Imaginaire, in a fresh and performable translation. The 'imaginary invalid' Argan is so obsessed with his health that he fails to notice what is happening around him in his own family. His scheming wife and loving daughter are finally revealed to him in their true light by Argan's brother, who poses as a quack doctor and suggests he feigns death to test their loyalty. This English version of Molière's The Hypochondriac, in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series, is translated and introduced by Martin Sorrell.

"Monsieur Jordan is greedy for culture at all costs and aspired to dizzy social heights. Moliere's ferociously funny interchanges between the gullible hero and a succession of dancing masters, philosophy tutors, dubious tailors and penniless aristocrats make this a hugely enjoyable play which exposes the hypocrisy of the connoisseur. This adaptation of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme was produced at the National Theatre to great acclaim. "

The School for Wives concerns an insecure man who contrives to show the world how to rig an infallible alliance by marrying the perfect bride; The Learned Ladies centers on the domestic calamities wrought by a domineering woman upon her husband, children, and household. "Wilbur...makes Moliere into as great an English verse playwright as he was a French one" (John Simon, New York). Introductions by Richard Wilbur.

Contains five works from the classical period of French theatre - "The Cid", "Phedra", "Tartuffe", "The Lottery of Love" and "The Marriage of Figaro".

Da sich der reiche Pariser Argan einbildet, schwer krank zu sein und an immer neuen Krankheiten zu leiden, ist es ein Leichtes für seine Ärzte und Apotheker, ihm teure Medikamente zu verkaufen und bei ihm viel Geld für nutzlose Behandlungen zu kassieren. Sein blindes Vertrauen in Ärzte führt schliesslich so weit, dass der Haustyrann seine Tochter Ang?lique mit einem Arzt verheiraten möchte, obwohl sie sich bereits in einen anderen verliebt hat. Durch verschiedene Tricks seines Dienstmädchens und seines Bruders gelingt es schliesslich, Argan von der Ignoranz und Gewinnsucht seiner Ärzte zu überzeugen, sodass Ang?lique nun statt des Arztes ihren Geliebten heiraten kann. Da er nicht auf einen Arzt in seinem Haus verzichten möchte, beschliesst er schliesslich, selbst zu promovieren. Moli?res humoristische Kritik an der Pharmazeutik und Ärzten ist auch für heutige Leser noch unterhaltsam und amüsant, und die bereits 1673 uraufgeführte Komödie begeistert über 330 Jahre später noch ein internationales Publikum. Trotz aller Heiterkeit hat die zeitlose Komödie auch einen tragischen Hintergrund, denn gegen Ende der vierten Aufführung erlitt Moli?re, der persönlich die Rolle des Argan übernommen hatte, einen Blutsturz und starb nur wenige Stunden nach der Aufführung.

With a calloused and lustful heart, Don Juan indulges his sexual appetites with boundless enthusiasm. Heedless of warnings both earthly and otherwise, history's most notorious romantic devil rushes headlong toward retribution in Moli re's sparkling comedy. "Richard Nelson's supple translation accommodates this transposition comfortably, without infidelity to the original." Julius Novick, The Village Voice "Richard Nelson's translation...seems an improvement on previous drab, very English, English versions." James Lardner, The Washington Post

This audacious adaptation of Les Femmes Savantes, Moliere's mischievous farce inditing intellectual ladies of the salons, is liberally peppered with contemporary allusions which put it firmly in the present.-5 women, 5 men

Harpagon, the most desperate, scheming miser in literature, starves his servants, declines to pay them, cheats his own children if he can save (or make) a few coins, and when his hoard of gold disappears, insanely accuses himself of being the thief. Dandin, in this rousing classic, not previously available in English for sixty years, is a man in a plight that everybody but him will find entertaining.