Reviews 2005
Reviews 2005
✭✭✭✭✩
by Molière, directed by Diana Leblanc
Théâtre français de Toronto, Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs, Toronto
April 15-30, 2005
An excellent cast, the sparkling direction of Diana Leblanc and Sarah Balleux’s eye-popping designs that blend the 17th and 21st centuries combine to make the Theâtre français de Toronto production of Molière’s classic comedy Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670) an uproarious delight. Because of the TfT’s addition of English surtitles to selected performances even those who don’t know French now have the chance to enjoy the show.
Molière’s satire is timeless and multifaceted. The naïve, nouveau riche merchant Monsieur Jourdain (Guy Mignault) hires instructors in music, dance, fencing and philosophy to help make him a gentleman. When he insists that his daughter marry not her boyfriend but an aristocrat, her boyfriend’s servant Covielle (Paul Essiembre) hatches a wild scheme to save the day. Molière satirizes not just the vain pretensions of the wealthy bourgeoisie who think money can buy culture, but also the self-absorption of the experts they hire. In Act 2 during Jourdain’s famous mock initiation as a Turk, conducted entirely in nonsense language, Molière extends his satire to the conventions of language itself and clearly points to the Theatre of the Absurd more than two centuries later.
Mignault, one of our great comic actors, places Jourdain halfway between the childlike and the childish, an adult in awe of simple vowels. Essiembre is amusing as the stuck-up dancing master but is falling-down funny as Covielle, who masquerades as a “Turkish” translator speaking French with a Pakistani accent. Marie-Hélène Fontaine as Mme Jourdain is the justly outraged voice of reason confronted with her husband’s increasing folly.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2005-04-21.
Photo: Guy Mignault as Monsieur Jourdain.
2005-04-21
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme