Seventeen students. Twelve weeks. One 17th-century French comedy. L’Avare, a five-act satire by French playwright Molière, ran in the Chateau Theatre on April 29 and April 30. Translated as The Miser, the play was performed (entirely in French!) by the students of the French 306 course, “Study and Production of a Play.” The Chateau Theatre’s intimate seating arrangement allowed for around 50 guests per showing, and audience members sitting in the front row got an up-close-and-personal view of the performers, who were but a foot away. Even though the play premiered in 1668, its humor truly transcends time; the performance had the audience laughing throughout each act.
The play revolves around Harpagon (Robbie MacDonald ’13, Garron Sanchez ’13 and Cordon Smart ’11), an elderly, wealthy miser who rules his household with penny-pinching severity. Harpagon’s two children, Élise (Katherine Burdine ’11 and Grace Gohlke ’13) and Cléante (Todd Langstaff ’13 and Miles Abadilla ’12) are prisoners of their cheapskate father. He holds dominion over their lives, depriving them of independence and denying them his money as well as the freedom to choose their own spouses. Instead of letting them marry for love, Harpagon arranges for Élise and Cléante to be married to wealthy suitors, so that Harpagon’s own wealth can grow. Hypocritically, Harpagon falls in lust with a girl, Mariane (Shannon Muscatello ’13), who turns out to be Cléante’s true lover. Now that father and son have their eyes on the same woman, a bitter rivalry develops. Yet Harpagon has a dark secret: he has a large sum of money hidden underground on his property, and he is paranoid about people coming in and stealing it. Through a staged robbery of his father’s hidden money, Cléante is able to force his father to give up the plans for his and Élise’s staged weddings. In return for reuniting Harpagon with his stolen money, Cléonte and Élise are allowed to marry their true lovers.
Because most characters had multiple actors, it was interesting to see the differences between the same characters with each act change. As the hunchbacked Harpagon in Acts I and II, MacDonald stole the show right off the bat. His facial expressions, manic mannerisms and vile cackles of laughter perfectly captured the mindset of an elderly, slightly demented miser. In Acts III and IV, Sanchez put a suave, villainous spin on the character, which was an interesting and welcome change from MacDonald’s intense portrayal of the miser. Sanchez’s Harpagon was easily the most amusing of the three; his over-the-top, melodramatic moments had the audience in stitches. Though only for the last act, Smart’s portrayal of the villainous old man was a throwback to MacDonald’s angry and deranged character, and his performance brought the play to a satisfying close.
Langstaff’s Cléonte was a suave portrayal of the starcrossed son of the miser. He performed the role with the grace and savoir-faire of a French nobleman, and his triumphant return in Act V was greeted with wild applause from the audience as he reclaimed Mariane. Another outstanding character was Frosine (Nora Fiore ’12 and Paula Bogutyn ’13). As Harpagon’s confidante and matchmaker, she arranges his marriage to Mariane — his own son’s lover. Fiore, who played Frosine in Act II, started the character off with a vibrant, infectious quirkiness, which Bogutyn followed up in Acts II, IV and V, albeit to a calmer degree.
However, the character who had the audience in an uproar was La Flèche, played by Alex Geller ’12. She played the role of Harpagon’s bumbling servant; dressed in striped pants and sporting a signature goofy gait, Geller provided most of the comic relief for most of the play, but her character also had an important role later on in the stealing of Harpagon’s money, helping Cléonte reclaim his rightful lover.
In addition to the superb acting, the costuming (directed by Leslie Crawford, Paula Bogutyn and Claire Spacher) was stunning and very accurate to the time period. Highlights were Frosine’s lavish violet dresses, the men’s period costumes and Harpagon’s distinct black robe. The lighting was also very impressive for such an intimate performance; effects such as a flashing “lightning bolt” put a modern touch on Molière’s classic piece.
Practicing for an entire semester to put on a play was both challenging and rewarding for the members of the class. Geller quickly realized the obstacles of performing in another language.
“I’ve never been involved with theater, so for me the class felt more like an introduction to the performing arts than it did a French class,” said Geller. “Memorizing lines — and doing so in another language — was a lot more challenging than expected. I found that my normal grammatical slip-ups in conversational French resurfaced when I was reciting lines in rehearsal. I mixed up masculine and feminine adjectives, and my use of articles was sort of scattered — so those were all things I had to be especially aware of.”
Geller also noted that being in a performance as a class really brought the students together.
“The context of the course forced us to get a lot more comfortable with our classmates than we normally would in a Middlebury class, which was great. I also found that “my homework” was pretty portable. I went over lines while walking to class, or I would mutter them to myself in the dining hall — unfortunately I think I freaked a lot of people out though. I would accidentally get really in character and make distorted faces while speaking nonsensical things in French.”
Geller commented that memorizing lines was a bonding experience for the class, and quickly evolved into a campus-wide phenomenon.
“I know some of us went over lines in the shower, which I imagine was a funny experience for anyone else in the bathroom,” she said. “Once Robbie [MacDonald] and I met in the library group study rooms, and while we were yelling at each other in French, someone came by to let us know that the room was not, in fact, sound proof. Once I walked by the lounge in Forest and heard people speaking French really enthusiastically in the lounge. I opened up the door only to see other classmates running over lines. We sort of infested the College — in all of our French nonsense.”
To put on such a professional and comical play was a great accomplishment, especially in the short span of less than 12 weeks. L’Avare was truly a testament to the performers’ abilities both as students and actors.
Fren 306 presents: "L'Avare"
Comments
