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The Learned Ladies
The Learned Ladies
About the Play
Molière's penultimate play, The Learned Ladies (six men, five women), bears a striking resemblance in its structure and story to Tartuffe. That is to say, he stole from himself. At the time he wrote it, he was old, sick, and out of favor with the king. He needed to poke fun at a group unable to poke back. Where better to go than the women's movement of the 17th-century? Molière installed the mother of the house in place of Orgon, and the character of Trissotin in the place of the infamous religious hypocrite. Of course, as with most of Molière's plays, there is an imminent forced marriage between the villain and an unwilling daughter. This particular Molière opus is infrequently performed, even in the fine classical translations available, because, well, women have come a long way baby, and the play seems horribly sexist if it is translated as written.
This adaptation was written to be performed in a stylized 20th-century setting. Just about any time between 1910 and the present will work. The language, although in verse, is modern and needs a setting and style conducive to its tone. However the productions at Classic Stage Company and ACT utilized a fantasy period. Hence, the women wore stylized panniers over pants. This particular approach should be done only with an elaborate budget to support the fantasy. Other productions have utilized New Orleans during women's suffrage, the 1950s in Paris, and of course the women's movement of the 1970s.
The story: Philamente and her daughter Armande are rabid supporters of the new intellectual movement among women. In her overzealous zeal, Philamente has taken in an impoverished poet who is ready to take her in. She wants to marry her younger daughter Henriette to him so that he will improve her mind. She wants to marry the handsome and slightly reactionary Clitandre, who was in love with her older sister until she spurned him for intellectual pursuits. Add to this a meek husband, a loony if lovable sister, a practical brother-in-law and a couple of mouthy servants and you have the makings of a sprightly evening of theater (see reviews!). Judge for yourself as you read the sample scene.
Cast of Characters
MARTINE: the maid, street smart and sassy (any age)
ARISTE: Brother to Chrysale, the voice of reason (50s)
HENRIETTE: Daughter to Chrysale & Philamente, sweet (20s)
CLITANDRE: Henriette’s suitor, hotheaded but a good guy (30s)
TRISSOTIN: a house guest and a bad poet (40s)
VADIUS: another poet, rival to Trissotin (30s)
JUDGE: played by Vadius
PHILAMENTE: wife of Chrysale, a liberated woman (50s)
ARMANDE: Older sister of Henriette, a wannabe liberated woman (30s)
BELISE: Sister to Chrysale, very eccentric but lovable (60s)
Scene Sample
The following scene between ARMANDE and BELISE, followed by ARMANDE and HENRIETTE, opens the play.
(At curtain rise we are in the living room of CHRYSALE and PHILAMENTE, a bourgeois couple, or in its modern terms, upper middle-class. Their home has been "decorated" in the latest neo -- intellectual fashion. Books hang festoon from abundant shelves. Strange scientific equipment seems to be the style du jour. There is a telescope on the balcony. BELISE is discovered dancing. The servants move about the room reading books, except for Martine who cleans. The servants are unaware that BELISE is dancing with them. And HENRIETTE enters and watches her aunt for a few moments. The servants exit. BELISE sees HENRIETTE.)
BELISE
Hello, my darling!
HENRIETTE
Aunt Belise!
BELISE
Come dance!
HENRIETTE
What dance is this?
BELISE
A dance of sweet romance,
Or dark and tragic love.
HENRIETTE
No, please let's see
A dance of marital festivity!
(She takes a piece of lace and covers her head to make a veil)
BELISE
How lovely, deer. With someone by your side,
You'll make a very, very charming bride.
ARMANDE
(entering)
Well, this is quite a spectacle!
BELISE
Hello!
ARMANDE
What's going on in here, I'd like to know.
BELISE
Come join our dance, my dear, and you will see!
ARMANDE
No thanks, such foolishness is not for me.
BELISE
Your sister’s far too serious!
HENRIETTE
Alas!
BELISE
(seeing her handsome, well built
Buddhist scripture teacher in the doorway)
Oh dear, I've got to go, I'm late for class!
ARMANDE
What's this about?
HENRIETTE
What?
ARMANDE
This! A marriage veil?
HENRIETTE
Why not?
ARMANDE
Because you might as well choose jail.
You'd give up all the joys of single life?
HENRIETTE
I see great joy in being someone's wife.
ARMANDE
I must sit down. My sister' s gone insane.
The very thought!
HENRIETTE
But why should I her recent train
My natural choice?
ARMANDE
It's vulgar, base and lowly.
HENRIETTE
The word that springs to mind for me is holy.
ARMANDE
How smug you are! You know the great disdain
I feel for marriage!
HENRIETTE
Please, let me explain.
The images that I would choose to see
Are pleasant ones of home and family.
Myself, a husband, children in a nest
All filled with love and laughter, Heaven blessed!
And every night in bed between the sheets,
I'm served a fantasy feast of nuptial treats.
ARMANDE
Revolting.
HENRIETTE
It does not fill me with fright.
ARMANDE
It's sad how much your mind won't see the light.
HENRIETTE
Perhaps, but what's enlightened is my heart.
It does not wish to spend its life apart
From one whose filled it with such tenderness.
I am in love, I'm guilty, I confess!
ARMANDE
Good Lord, your mind’s in such a low estate
That you are telling me you choose this fate?
In household’s prison, asking to be locked
With spouse and screaming babies? Well, I’m shocked.
My dear, you must give up this foolish goal.
Through knowledge you will elevate your soul
And leave the burdens of domestic life
To other women, who enjoy the strife.
When one gets married, intellectual
Pursuits are simply ineffectual.
How can you think when all your time is spent
In housework and domestic argument?
Please, set your mind at high consideration
And think a bit of mother’s liberation.
The eyes of learnéd men are fast upon her,
And not with lust, but deference and honor.
I’d sing your praise as learned far and wide,
Before I’d stoop to sing, “Here Comes the Bride.”
Oh, Henriette, it’s truly rapturous
To study differential calculus!
It’s hard at first, but what a satisfaction
The first time you make sense of such abstraction!
Read Blaise Pascal on probability,
Boyle’s elements and Milton’s history,
And Newton’s orbit of the moon! It’s thrilling!
Such studies are rewarding and fulfilling.
This wealth of knowledge is what should inspire you,
And not some man, who thinks he might desire you,
And make you slave to laws devised by men.
Philosophy must be your husband then.
Its very nature serves to elevate
Our souls to heights at which we may create
Environs where our lust can have no sway,
Where carnal passions can be kept at bay.
Thus, thoughts of pleasure have no ill effects
And one can turn one’s back on S-E-X.
HENRIETTE
Sweet sister, from our Lord we’ve been ordained
With different functions. What is to be gained
From being something I’m not meant to be?
If you want to espouse philosophy,
The heights of worthy, learnéd speculation,
Then I wish to embrace domestication.
Let’s not disturb what Heaven has arranged.
I do not want my instincts to be changed.
I’m happy for you in your worldly flight
To great philosophy’s stupendous height,
But flying to me is one of those things
For which God would endow us all with wings
If we were meant to fly. So leave me here,
In earthly bliss and pure domestic cheer
To follow mother in her lesser role,
But one which helps to elevate her soul.
ARMANDE
If mothers whom you wish to imitate,
Then use her finer parts to best create
The model.
HENRIETTE
But, my sister, think on this:
We’d not be here if not for wedded bliss.
The basest parts of marriage, as you say,
Are what gave all of us the light of day,
And I, for one, applaud the time she chose a
Moment to forget Kant and Spinoza
.
Accept with grace this marriage that I want,
And soon I may produce a new savant
What the critics are saying about The Learned Ladies
"A specialist in applying new spit and polish to Moliere classics, Freyda Thomas turns to his comparatively obscure junior contemporary Jean-Francois Regnard in "The Gamester," based on the latter's 1696 "Le Joueur." Less an adaptation than a new commedia inspired by the original work's basic plot outline, this sparkling farce about a compulsive gambler has no trouble bridging a 310-year gap in audience tastes. And Ron Lagomarsino's American Conservatory Theater staging reps one of that entity's more purely enjoyable productions in some time."
Dennis Harvey
Variety.com
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