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?

Misanthrope Design Thoughts

I am directing a production of The Misanthrope this fall, in Constance Congdon's adaptation, based on a translation by Virginia Scott. I worked on one of the original productions of this translation in 2000 when I was just starting in the Dramaturgy program at UMASS. I was the Assistant Director, and then was cast as Du Bois when an actor had to leave the production.

We've been in rehearsal for several weeks now, and it is coming along very well. The translation is in rhyming verse, and a lot of it is still in my head from when I worked on it seventeen years ago. I keep beating the stage management team to the punch when actors call for line, because I usually don't have to be looking at the script to know what the next line is.

Here are some thoughts I shared with the design team last spring as we prepared for the show. Some of this has changed.

At MSU directors are expected to develop a Premise statement about the play (at UMASS we used the similar term point-of-view).

Misanthrope Director Statement

Premise: Unrealistic and imbalanced expectations lead to rupture.

The Misanthrope is a play about friendship and love in a world of absolute power enforced through surveillance. The central premise is that unrealistic and imbalanced expectations lead to rupture. Alceste pressures the worldly Célimène for a romantic commitment in isolation from society. Likewise, Célimène’s expectation that she can indefinitely string along five suitors ultimately blows up in her face. But we also see this idea early in the play when Oronte pressures Alceste to be his friend and to praise his poem, leading to a lawsuit between them. Along with Clitandre and Acaste, Oronte has unrealistic expectations of Célimène’s fidelity. In contrast, characters who know how to manage their expectations come together in the end: Eliante settles for Philinte as a secondary romantic interest, and it seems like they will be happy together.

The play is packed with ideas, often framed as opposites: Truth vs. Lies, Honesty vs. Tact, Private Self vs. Public Self, Litigation vs. Diplomacy, Privilege vs. Justice, Realism vs. Idealism. “Balance” works as a central image for this play, but characters’ approaches to balance might differ.

The play was originally written in 1666 during a period of great productivity for Molière, which coincided with a tension in the playwright’s relationships with his young wife Armande, with some members of his theatre company, and with King Louis XIV. The King is an ever-present force lurking behind the scenes of The Misanthrope, and characters constantly talk about their possible influence with the King.

Our production is set in/inspired by the 1750s, under King Louis XV. Partly because this is a fun, sexy design period, and partly because the language of the translation is a bit more modern. I have chosen Constance Congdon’s translation because I’ve worked on it before, and I think it’s better for actors than Richard Wilbur’s version because she doesn’t punch the rhymes as much.

I say “set in/inspired by” because I’m open to the exercise of period research and historical accuracy, or to making choices that use the period a jumping-off point.

Setting

The whole play takes place in one room in Célimène’s house. She is a wealthy widow, presumably having been married to a much older man. In Act II it feels like a salon. So it’s a semi-public room in her house, where she receives guests. (But Alceste and some others feel comfortable hanging out there when she’s not around.) Probably she has redecorated after her husband’s death, and it has more of a feminine touch. I like the idea of painting a geometric design on the floor in the Arena, whether it’s a traditional parquet floor, an eighteenth-century carpet, or something more whimsical.

Costumes and Hair/Make-up

In terms of costumes, what’s most important for the story is that there’s a continuum of fashion where Alceste and Arsinoé will be the most conservative (note: Alceste has to have green ribbons); Philinte and Eliante have a classy sense of chic; Célimène, Acaste, and Clitandre are very fashion-forward; and Oronte is trying too hard. No one really needs more than one costume, but it would be nice if Célimène could have some changes since we’re in her house and she has access to her wardrobe, and she’s rich and cares about fashion a lot. All the characters are very sure of themselves, confident, decisive.     

This eighteenth century is potentially really crazy for wigs, but I’d rather not go too far. None of the women in this play would wear a boat on their head. A lot of the crazier stuff is satirical, anyway. And the 1750s are much more restrained than the 1770s. Most characters should be accessible and elegant. Alceste would probably not wear a wig, or might wear the short “round wig” like Rousseau did, starting in 1751.   

Lighting

This is a neoclassical comedy that takes place within 24 hours. I actually think it’s around 12 hours, with Acts 1-3 taking place between lunch and dinner, and Acts 4-5 taking place later at night. So it will be fun to play with time of day, probably natural lighting through windows for the first half, and then imitating candlelight for the second half. Another option is to play with mood and style. Act II is very theatrical, with characters performing imitations of others; this style might return at the beginning of Act IV when Philinte imitates Alceste, but then Act IV goes to a much more intense place.

Sound

It would be great to have music between scenes. The transitions won’t be too long, as there should be little need to move furniture. The 1750s is the time of the Querelle des Bouffes (1752-1754), which pitted Italian opera buffa (Pergolesi) against French tragic opera (Lully and Rameau). Alceste would be on the traditional French side of that divide, and Célimène would likely be more interested in the newer form. (In fact, the song Alceste sings in Act I was written around 1550.) It would be fun to compose some music in imitation of both sides and use these musical styles to mark when Alceste is dominating vs. when Célimène is dominating.