Moliere, or The League of Hypocrites

Synopsis

Assailed by rumours and tracked by the secret police, Jean-Baptiste Moliere's private life starts to fall apart. In this world of whispers and distortions, everyone is vulnerable. But not everyone has a theatre to run. Inspired by real-life events and written under the shadow of Stalin, Moliere is about a man's fight to keep his integrity under a repressive regime.

Our Review:

27 November 2009

“Passion has seized hold of me” exclaims the renowned actor/playwright, as he tells his long-time lover that he is about to marry her younger sister - or the girl whom he takes to be her younger sister - and thus he propels himself, eventually, into the vengeful hands of the Church, which, in the person of the Archbishop of Paris, has decided that Molière and his plays are atheist abominations, taking particular exception to the hypocritical priest, Tartuffe.

Bulgakov’s biting satire on the Stalinist regime, in Michael Glenny’s lucid translation, miraculously captures the essence of the court of Louis XIV in the 1660s, and of backstage life at the Palais-Royal where Molière wrote, directed, acted, and managed the theatre for 14 years. It also seethes with Bulgakov’s “deep scepticism” about the Russian Revolution. Written in 1929, and almost immediately banned, it didn’t see the light of day until seven years later, when it became a huge popular success. But it finished Bulgakov...

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