Moliere

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known popularly by his stage name Molière, is regarded as one of the masters of French comedic drama. When Molière began acting in Paris there were two well-established theatrical companies, those of the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the Marais. Joining these theatrical companies would have been impossible for a new member of the acting profession like Molière and thus he performed with traveling troupes of actors in the French...

Two timeless comedies by one of France's greatest playwrights: Tartuffe, a 1664 verse comedy concerning a scoundrel who impersonates a holy man, and the 1670 prose farce The Bourgeois Gentleman, a lampoon about the superficial characteristics of Parisian nobility. Original French texts with excellent English interpretations on facing pages.

The King, who will have nothing but what is magnificent in all he undertakes, wished to give his court an entertainment which should comprise all that the stage can furnish. To facilitate the execution of so vast an idea, and to link together so many different things, his Majesty chose for the subject two rival princes, who, in the lovely vale of Tempe, where the Pythian Games were to be celebrated, vie with each other in fêting a young princess...

Molière excels in farce as well as in higher comedy, and 'Monsieur de Pourceaugnac' is one of the best of its kind. The attacks upon the doctors of the time are not exaggerated. Molière acted the part of Mr. De Pourceaugnac.

Orgon's family is up in arms because Orgon and his mother have fallen under the influence of Tartuffe, a pious fraud (and a vagrant prior to Orgon's help). Tartuffe pretends to be pious and to speak with divine authority, and Orgon and his mother no longer take any action without first consulting him.

Scapin constantly lies and tricks people to get ahead. He is an arrogant, pompous man who acts as if nothing were impossible for him. However, he is also a diplomatic genius. He manages to play the other characters off of each other very easily, and yet manages to keep his overall goal - to help the young couples - in sight.

Magdelon and Cathos, two young women from the provinces who have come to Paris in search of love and jeux d'esprit. Gorgibus, the father of Magdelon and uncle of Cathos, decides they should marry a pair of eminently eligible young men but the two women find the men unrefined and ridicule them.

Molière wrote some of the most durable and penetrating comedies of all time. The Imaginary Cuckold and The School for Husbands are two of his grand farces of marriage and misunderstanding, one set in Paris and the other in the provinces. In The School for Husbands, a tyrannical husband-to-be seeks to isolate his ward, while unwittingly carrying her messages of devotion to her lover. In The Imaginary Cuckold an enraged husband imagines his wife is...

After his wedding night with beautiful Alcmene, Amphitryon leaves to participate in a war. Jupiter, who is fascinated by Alcmene's beauty, come to earth under the appearance of Amphitryon, accompanied by Mercury who has taken the appearance of Amphitryon's servant Sosie. Amphitryon is successful in war and sends Sosie back home to report this. Sosie is greeted by his look-alike Mercury, who beats him and convinces him that he Mercury is the real Sosie....

Comédie de Molière en cinq actes de 1660. Molière présente l'intrigue en ces mots : "La pièce débute par le mécontentement de deux gentilshommes, La Grange et Du Croisy, qui viennent d'être reçus avec mépris par Madelon et Cathos, respectivement fille et nièce de Gorgibus, bourgeois de province récemment installé à Paris, qui voulait les leur donner en mariage. La Grange promet de se venger avec l'aide de son valet Mascarille..."