Molière: “I want to deal with the absurdities of human nature and represent the shortcomings of the world in an agreeable manner on stage”.
Reason enough for a team of full-blooded actors – gathered from Olympique Dramatique, STAN, ARSENAAL/LAZARUS, Dood Paard and NTGent – to dip into Molière’s work and make a new show. Stijn Van Opstal, Kuno Bakker, Damiaan De Schrijver, Jolente De Keersmaeker, Els Dottermans, Willy Thomas and Frank Vercruyssen are the team working on Molière’s oeuvre.
Plays which have definitely made it onto the programme are: Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670), in which Molière makes fun of a wealthy gentleman who tries to copy the behaviour of the aristocracy, and L’Avare (The Miser, 1668), a tragicomedy about parsimony, the perverted exercise of power, avarice, truth and lies and the generation conflict. And at the same time a wonderful metaphor for the banking crisis.
STAN knows Molière’s work particularly well. Back in 2004, this actors’ collective made the successful Poquelin, a play based on a number of Molière’s plays, including Médecin malgré lui (The Doctor in Spite of Himself) Sganarelle (The Imaginary Cuckold) and Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid). A Dutch version and a French version of the show toured extensively and clearly left their audiences wanting more. Hence Poquelin II.
Courtships, scrooges, dressing up in costumes: Poquelin II presents Molière as an old-fashioned side splitter.
"But it’s mainly the actors who make a good play out of Poquelin II. We might actually love Van Opstal and Co. Because of the rhythm they put in their words. Because of the incredible talent they have. And those whom we love can easily convince us. Molière already knew that 300 years ago."
"Stan transports us to the boisterous theatre of the 17th century, where actors didn’t think twice about overdoing things here or there, to the great delight of the audience."
"The jokes and worldly wisdom are rattled off at you like a rifle salvo for 2 ½ hours by a formidable cast – the joy of performing bursts from the small stage. Go see for yourself."
Downloads
by and with
- Damiaan De Schrijver
- Els Dottermans
- Frank Vercruyssen
- Jolente De Keersmaeker
- Kuno Bakker
- Stijn Van Opstal
- Willy Thomas
text
- Molière
light design
- Thomas Walgrave
costume design
- Inge Büsscher
production
- Toneelhuis
- STAN
- STAN
coproduction
- ARSENAAL
- Dood Paard
- Olympique Dramatique
- Toneelhuis
- NTGent
![[meeuw]](https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/ths-sdn/a13Tl00000OIShbIAH_420x275.jpg)
