In this five-act comedy, a playwright named Alceste, the titular misanthrope, is sick of the hypocrisy and superficiality of the people around him, including his friend John and his celebrity girlfriend Jennifer and the entourage that comes along with her.

When I saw that The Misanthrope was been played at a local theater, I was intrigued but unable to go within the timeframe it was playing. So I decided to take out a copy of Moliere’s famous play from the library. Unfortunately, I wasn’t careful enough when I put in the inter-library loan request and ended up with the Martin Crimp version instead of the original. This edition is not a simple translation but a new version set in London with modern (1996) characters and effects.

There was a lot I found odd about this play, and I’m not sure if that’s a consequence of this being a version rather than a translation, or if it’s like that in the original as well. For instance, despite it being declared a comedy, I did not find it particularly funny for the most part, although the occasional reference to Moliere and the 17th century was amusing. This is not a complete write-off, as I did find it interesting – I’m just not sure that I would classify it as a comedy myself.

In addition, I found the play a bit meandering in its focus. The beginning with Alceste’s rants about the hypocrisy of people was interesting to me and fitting with the misanthrope title. This theme would surface again here and there but instead a lot of the play focused on relationship between Alceste and his much younger movie star girlfriend Jennifer. This was an odd relationship because she was so superficial and everything Alceste claimed to hate, not to mention that she was openly cheating on him from the beginning but a turning point is when he flies off the handle after finding out about one particular infidelity.

Furthermore, the rhyming dialogue was peculiar. As I mentioned earlier, the subject matter really is serious to some extent but the rhyming makes everything sound singsong and childish in my head. I would be curious to see how it actually reads on the stage. I believe the original play used rhyming dialogue also so it's not an absurd change or anything. However, the dialogue sounds forced this way because 1) who rhymes in everyday life with themselves and bouncing off the person who just spoke? and 2) the playwright had to find some rather unusual words at times to both make a rhyme and fit in the context of the conversation. I did, however, like the overlapping lines of dialogue, as this did make the conversations seem more natural.

One final note particular to this version is that why all the names were modernized but Alceste’s was not is a mystery to me.

Overall, I found this version of Moliere’s play puzzling rather than entertaining but I remain intrigued to read the actual play. ( )