The School of Wives | Play
12 July 2022
Accessible only for Registered Users.
One of Molière’s darkest comedies on masculine fear and cruelty – as well as on feminine resourcefulness. For the last four years, Arnolphe has prevented his young daughter from having any contact with the outside world in order for his marriage plans for her to come to fruition. Agnès’s ignorance to her plight is also disturbing. Survival strategy or inability to deal with the outside world, it is hard to tell. This shutting off from the outside world, in both physical and ideological terms, also strikes us as being extremely violent. Indeed, Arnolphe soon finds the cruelty of his actions turning back on him, the intensity of his nightmares increasing. The whole play unfurls in front of the house. It is here that Agnès is kept “safe and sound”. Molière, however, weaves mysterious ellipses in between the acts. They provide us with scenes that take place in secret, within the confines of the house, and which are then related to us - in whole or in part - at a later date. These ellipses prompt the reader to use their own imagination, and plunge into the hidden novel behind the play. Just as he did in Tartuffe (Odéon, 2008), this is precisely the novel which Stéphane Braunschweig will be inviting us to explore. Only then can we discover, perhaps, a very different Agnès, the essence of whom lies beyond Arnolphe’s grasp. It will be theatre’s job to reveal what happens behind the closed shutters, and to bring out the humour, as dark as it is strange, of Molière’s brand of madness.
Audio: FR
Subtitles: FR, EN
By Molière, directed by Stéphane Braunschweig
with
Suzanne Aubert : Agnès
Laurent Caron : Alain
Claude Duparfait : Arnolphe
Georges Favre : Enrique
Glenn Marausse : Horace
Thierry Paret : Oronte
Ana Rodriguez : Georgette
Assane Timbo : Chrysalde
Designer: Stéphane
Braunschweig
Artistical collaboration: Anne-Françoise Benhamou
Stage design collaboration: Alexandre de Dardel
Costumes: Thibault Vancraenenbroeck
Lights: Marion Hewlett
Sound: Xavier Jacquot
Video : Maïa Fastinger
Make-up / hair: Karine Guillem
Director assistant : Clémentine Vignais
Set design : Atelier de construction de l'Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe
A show created on 9 November 2018 at the Odéon
Production Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe
Coproduction Théâtre de Liège, DC&J Créations
With the support of Le Cercle de l’Odéon, and Tax Shelter du Gouvernement fédéral de Belgique
Production of the recording Alexis de Favitski
Translation and cutting of subtitles : Dominique Hollier
Subtitles : Juliette Caron
© ODEON-THEATRE DE L’EUROPE - 2019