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by Pierre Carlet de Marivaux, directed by Joël Beddows

Théâtre français de Toronto, Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs, Toronto

October 17-28 , 2018

Le Chevalier: “Vous n’auriez qu’une chose à craindre avec moi, qui est que mon amitié ne devînt amour”

Molière almost always was on the playbill at Théâtre français de Toronto.  But last season new Artistic Director Joël Beddows broke the pattern with Pierre Corneille’s Le Menteur (1644) and this year he begins the 2018/19 season with Marivaux’s Le Seconde Surprise de l’amour (1727).  Pierre Carlet de Marivaux (1688-1773) was one of the greatest French authors of comedy who was able to move beyond Molière’s gallery of monomaniacs and to drop slapstick and disguise to discover the subtle humour inherent in human psychology. 

Traditional comedy presents a figure, like one of Molière’s grotesques, who blocks the happiness of a young couple.  Marivaux’s great contribution was to realize that the figure blocking one’s happiness may actually be oneself.  In Le Seconde Surprise de l’amour the barriers to the main characters’ happiness lie within the minds of the characters.  As a result the play feels remarkably fresh and modern.  Under Beddows’ insightful direction the humour of the self-made quandaries of the characters shines through and makes us root for a happy resolution with even more vigour.

The story concerns the Marquise (Karine Ricard), who has been mourning the death of her husband for six months.  She and he had been in love for two years but after only one month of marriage he died.  Her practical servant Lisette (Patricia Marceau) thinks that her mistress has mourned long enough  The Marquise, however, feels she will mourn the rest of her life and has hired Hortensius (Pierre Simpson), a scholar of Greek and Latin, to help her use philosophy to accommodate herself to her grief. 

At the same time the Marquise’s neighbour, the Chevalier (Nabil Traboulsi), has also decided to mourn the loss of his beloved for the rest of his life.  His beloved has not died but, in rebellion against a forced marriage to someone she did not love, has taken the veil.  In a wonderful scene in Act 1, the Marquise and the Chevalier meet and immediately bond with each other because they realize that only someone in mourning can understand someone else in mourning.  In his delightfully sophisticated way, Marivaux shows us that this bond is the beginning of their love for each other even though they have both vowed eternal celibacy to honour the memory of their lost loves.

Aggravating the issue is the Comte (Manuel Verreydt), who, like the Chevalier, was a friend of the Marquise’s late husband.  He aggressively pursues the Marquise as a wife despite her vow of mourning.  Strangely enough, the Chevalier finds that the Comte’s attentions to the Marquise arouse a jealousy within him that he does not understand.  When Lisette presses the Chevalier, he states he will never marry the Marquise.  The Marquise, on learning of this, feels insulted, though for reasons she does not fully understand. 

With the Comte actively in love with the Marquise, the Chevalier unknowingly in love with her and even Hortensius secretly in love with her, we wonder who will prevail and when the Marquise will realize that her deep friendship with the Chevalier is really love.  At the same time we wonder when the Chevalier will realize that his deep friendship with the Marquise has become much more than friendship.  Paralleling the relationship of the Marquise and the Chevalier is the more commonplace on-again-off-again relationship of Lisette with the Chevalier’s valet Lubin (Nicolas Van Burek).

Melanie McNeill’s costumes have relocated the action from the 18th century to some time in the present.  Her set is quite unusual in that it represents the Marquise’s house and garden where all the action takes place in an abstract manner by means of a series of wavy, unconnected walls.  Beddows uses the set as as a metaphor for the loves of the Marquise and the Chevalier.  Depending on one’s point of view, we can see the set a series of walls or impediments, or a series of hidden exits and escapes.

The cast is uniformly excellent.  As the Marquise, Karine Ricard gives the impression that, like Olivia in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, she may have been in mourning too long but does not want to admit it to anyone, least of all herself.  Similarly, Nabil Traboulsi presents the Chevalier as a sympathetic man who sees renouncing all social contact as a noble duty to his lost love, though he may privately wonder what fulfilling this duty will actually accomplish.  Both Ricard and Traboulsi communicate through the most nuanced gestures and glances hopes and ideas contrary to the asceticism they express.  Untoward thoughts that arise their characters immediately suppress in order not to appear less dedicated to their lost love than the other.  It is delightful to see how Ricard and Traboulsi demonstrate the quiet pleasure and humorous self-deception it causes the Marquise and the Chevalier to decide that friendship can be stronger than love.      

Their lower-class counterparts are both well played.  Patricia Marceau is especially fine as Lisette.  Marceau portrays Lisette not as the typical pert and earthy maid of French comedy but as a faithful servant who feels it is her duty to help her mistress overcome her self-imposed sadness.  Of all the characters Marceau’s Lisette comes across as the greatest realist who sets out to battle all the dreamers who surround her.

Nicolas Van Burek’s Lubin is not quite a dreamer, but Lisette is constantly testing this flirtatious rascal throughout the play to see if he is really worthy of her attention.  Van Burek presents both Lubin’s lively openness and his false sadness in imitating his master as a fine contrast to the restraint and real affliction of Traboulsi’s Chevalier.      

Pierre Simpson and Manuel Verreydt portray Hortensius and the Comte as a comically contrasting pair of suitors.  Whereas Verreydt’s Comte is haughty and aggressive, Simpson’s Hortensius is self-effacing and quietly sly, choosing the books he reads to the Marquise with care to help communicate his personal intentions.  Hortensius is, of course, a fool in that the stoic philosophy he teaches the Marquise of using reason to subdue passion is exactly the opposite of what he hopes will happen.  Both Verreydt and Simpson reveal their characters as men with little self-knowledge – Verreydt’s Comte unaware of how off-putting his presumptuous attitude is, Simpson’s Hortensius of how tedious his constant talk of reason is. 

Marivaux’s perceptive study of how people can ruin their own happiness because of their inflexible states of mind anticipates Chekhov’s great comedies (since Chekhov considered all of his major plays comedies) by 170 years.  It is a real pleasure that the TfT has brought us another Marivaux and an especial delight that Joël Beddows has chosen La Second Surprise de l’amour, a masterpiece of structure, clarity of language and insight into human psychology, that should be much better known outside of Francophone countries than it is.  The present TfT production is so well-acted and directed, anyone who loves drama and wishes to see one of the greatest and subtlest of classical French comedies should make sure to see it.       

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive. 

Photos: (from top) Karine Ricard as the Marquise and Nabil Traboulsi as the Chevalier; Karine Ricard as the Marquise, Nabil Traboulsi as the Chevalier, Patricia Marceau as Lisette and Nicolas Van Burek as Lubin. ©2018 Marc Lemyre.

For tickets, visit http://theatrefrancais.com