Interview with Misanthrope Actor Katelyn Hodge

Interview with Katelyn Hodge (Arsinoe)

DS: Who is Arsinoé?

KH: Arsinoé is a woman who goes for what she wants. She is unafraid of a challenge, and will continue to push anything and anyone that might stand in her way. She's passionate about what she likes and what she doesn't, and that includes people. She's also got a pretty killer laugh.

DS: What is the biggest challenge or most fun part of playing this role?

KH: I think the biggest challenge is also what is the most fun about Arsinoe: the character is so unique in that she's talked about multiple times by other characters before she walks onto stage. In fact, she is actually ridiculed right before she enters stage for the first time. That makes my job as actor so much freeing, because no choice is too large or too off the wall, because everyone already has an idea of who she is before I enter. I love being able to mess with those expectations.

I also love having a group of incredible scenes, and a very talented cast to play with. That’s the word I keep coming back to: play, because the level of talent and the level of respect for each other in this cast and crew are both so heightened that we can continue to work hard but manage to laugh ourselves sore every night.

DS: How does this role compare to other roles you have played at MSU?

KH: This role is totally different from previous ones here at MSU, because its a much older period piece than I've had the opportunity to do before. I'm exploring so much more in depth about the 1700s than I had previously, which has been so cool.

I think the best part is that her issues are still things people deal with today, a loss of love and having a "frenenemy." Its still really easy to connect to her, even though she existed 300 years ago.

Interviews with Misanthrope Actors

Director Dan Smith asked some questions to Janette Angelini (Célimène) and Evan Phillips (Clitandre). These interviews will give you some insight into how an actor thinks about a role.

Interview with Janette Angelini

Dan Smith: Who is Célimène?

Janette Angelini: Celimene is an energetic, confident flirt and recent widow who has a deep struggle with commitment. Although she has openly admitted her love for Alceste, she acknowledges her other suitors and entertains them with both seduction and her knack and talent for gossip. Her life is centered around the balancing act she performs to keep them all in her back pocket. But how long can this act last you might ask!? You'll have to see the show!

DS: What is the biggest challenge or most fun part of playing this role?

JA: The biggest challenge for me in this role is just to keep her unapologetically candid. Most people have the tendency to hold back or filter themselves but Celimene is almost the epitome of no filter (not to say this has no consequence). Although that is a challenge it is also one of the most fun parts of performing this character. She also really knows herself and knows how to play others so finding those nuances within her relationships with other characters has been extremely enjoyable.

DS: How does this role compare to other roles you have played?

JA: This is such an exciting opportunity for me because this is my first classical show! I am constantly surprising myself with how much I have enjoyed this new style and process.

Interview with Evan Phillips

DS: Who is Clitandre?

EP: Clitandre is a Marquess, gossip enthusiast and potential suitor of Célimène, a woman who is desired by the majority of the men in the play.

DS: What is the biggest challenge of playing this role?

EP: Playing a Fop in the highly sophisticated Seventeenth Century is really challenging. Staying true and accurate to the time period while also embracing the possibilities of making ridiculous and foolish choices is definitely a balance that can be hard to juggle with.

DS: What is the most fun part of playing this role?

EP: In this show, Clitandre reveals very little about himself personally. So as an actor, I feel like I have a lot more freedom to construct all of the ridiculous thoughts & mannerisms of this character. It's a lot of fun to essentially have permission to look as ludicrous and absurd as I can, which makes Clitandre a rather enjoyable character to portray.

DS: How does this role compare to other parts you have played at MSU?

EP: I've played a lot of comedic characters during my time at MSU, so the role of Clitandre is a familiar one for me. Compared to my past roles, however, Clitandre is definitely the most flamboyant of them all and I've had a lot of fun playing a character who radiates such a high level of confidence and vibrancy whenever he happens to be present on the stage.

The Misanthrope: Translating Oronte's Sonnet

Early in Molière’s play, Oronte reads a sonnet he has written and asks Alceste to offer his candid feedback. What Oronte really wants is for Alceste to flatter him and tell him how great his poem is. Philinte understands what Oronte really wants, and praises the poem. But Alceste offers a harsh critique, even though he knows Oronte just wants flattery.

How bad is Oronte’s sonnet? French critic Jacques Guicharnaud suggests that the poem isn’t nearly as bad as Alceste claims it is. It’s a pretentious poem, a Petrarchan sonnet with a carpe diem theme. Oronte’s use of “poetic” word order breaks up the rhythm of the poem. But the poem does follow French rules of versification for the sonnet form. The octave and sestet explore the theme of hope from somewhat different perspectives. The rhyme scheme (ABAB CDCD EEF GGF) is appropriate, and offers alternating masculine and feminine rhymes. Alceste could fault the near rhymes in the second and fourth stanzas, but his critique is more about the poem’s pretensions, and his reaction says more about who he is as a character than about the actual quality of the poem.     

Here is the French text of Oronte’s sonnet:

L’espoir, il est vrai, nous soulage

Et nous berce un temps notre ennui:

Mais, Philis, le triste avantage,

Lorsque rien ne marche après lui!

Vous eûtes de la complaisance,
Mais vous en deviez moins avoir ;
Et ne vous pas mettre en dépense
Pour ne me donner que l’espoir.

S’il faut qu’une attente éternelle

Pousse à bout, l’ardeur de mon zèle,

Le trépas sera mon recours.

Vos soins ne m’en peuvent distraire

Belle Philis, on désepère,

Alors qu’on espère toujours.

Constance Congdon translates this as follows:

Hope, ‘tis true, comforts us anon,

Puts roses in our cheeks when wan.

But, Philis, what a most sad benefit

When no thing hoped for follows after it.

Your constant kindnesses end our ennui,

But would that you were more miserly,

Not given to such generous expenditure,

Dear Philis, of hope, then better we’d endure.

If it should be that this eternal waiting

Prolongs my zealous ardor to my death,

Then zealot shall I be, with my last breath.

Your little favors, Philis, won’t appease me,

Beautiful Philis, receive me ere I mope,

Because I’m in despair with joyful hope.

Congdon’s translation emphasizes the poem’s pretentions and arguably makes the poem worse in English than it is in French. She gives Oronte even more near-rhymes and changes up the rhyme scheme to decrease its complexity. The final image of moping suggests that Oronte is being childish, though the contrast of despair and joy is quite appropriate to Petrarchan imagery of love as leading to paradoxical feelings.

Richard Wilbur, an important American poet and the best-known American translator of Molière, offers the following English version of Oronte’s poem:

Hope comforts us awhile, ‘tis true,

Lulling our cares with careless laughter,

And yet such joy is full of rue,

My Philis, if nothing follows after.

Your fair face smiled on me awhile,

But was it kindness so to enchant me?

‘Twould have been fairer not to smile,

If hope was all you meant to grant me.

If it’s to be my passion’s fate

Thus everlastingly to wait,

Then death will come to set me free.

For death is fairer than the fair;

Phyllis, to hope is to despair

When one must hope eternally.

How does Wilbur’s version compare to Congdon’s? Which “bad” poem is more fun to read out loud in English?