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| Diana Rigg, Alec McCowen. |
THE MISANTHROPE
[Dramatic Revival] A: Molière; D: Tony Harrison; D: John Dexter; DS: Tania
Moiseiwitsch; L: Andy Phillips; D: David Merrick and the John F Kennedy Center
in the National Theatre of Great Britain Production; T: St. James Theatre;
3/12/75-5/31/75 (94)
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| Diana Rigg, Gawn Grainger, Alec McCowen, Louie Ramsay. |
Two years after its London opening, the National Theatre of Great Britain’s highly commended, controversial staging of Molière’s 1666 comedy-drama about a man who cannot abide hypocrisy was brought to Broadway with Alec McCowen and Diana Rigg (RIP) as Alceste and Celimene. The critics were intrigued, but not especially overjoyed by Tony Harrison’s adaptation, which placed the action in a 1966 Paris salon amid a France ruled by Gaullist policies. To heighten the contemporary feeling, Harrison added references to De Gaulle, Malraux, the Prix Goncourt, and so forth, as well as some 1960ish linguistic expressions.
None of this seemed to bother certain reviewers,
however. T.E. Kalem said the revision “does not seem to affect The Misanthrope one way or the other.”
Clive Barnes declared the “idea . . . cute and original. . . . The time change
works surprisingly well.” Not everyone felt likewise, however.
John Simon found the updating a “clever conceit,” but a jarring one, for he saw no reason to take a perfect play and give it a pertinence other than what already was present in its “timeless truths.” Brendan Gill argued that the switch in time made characters like Philinte and Celimene seem out of place. “[T]he plot, kept intact, is implausible in modern times,” argued Martin Gottfried. “Would an amateur poet [Oronte (Gawn Grainger)] really cause serious trouble for a celebrated writer who insulted him?”
Critical dissension marked various other choices. Some enjoyed
the translation’s rhymed couplets, others were pained by the sing-song effect
of speaking them. Even the choice of rhyme words proved annoying. Disagreement
arose over the effectiveness of the costumes, sets, and direction. Few thought
the notion of having Philinte (Robert Eddison), Acaste (Nicholas Clay), and
Clitandre (Albert Roffrano) played effeminately was wise.
McCowen’s Alceste was widely admired, but also widely
questioned. Barnes was ecstatic about his “wickedly pompous and egotistical”
character, the way the actor “superbly calculated, weighed and measured his
effects,” and his manner of clipping his “couplets with daring pauses, gestures
to chairs or the empty air.” To Martin Gottfried, thought, McCowen was guilty
of “acting all over the place.” Diana Rigg elicited strong encomiums, like this
from Edwin Wilson: “A lithe, vivacious woman, Miss Rigg amply demonstrates why
Celimene is irresistible. She moves about the stage in ineffable grace, and she
has a laugh which begins somewhere deep inside her and bubbles smartly to the
surface like a newly opened bottle of champagne.”
Consequently, Rigg received a Tony nomination for Best
Actress, Play. Tanya Moiseiwitsch also received a nomination, hers for Best
Scenic Design.