Three-day Molière Festival at Alliance Francaise

A scene from Bouder Pathshala

Molière's satires are not meant to generate juvenile humour. Influenced by the Italian 'Comedia Dell'arte' concept, Molière established the 'neo-Classical French comedy' technique to mock the fall of morality through witty dialogues. His Comedy of Morals is designed to ridicule and correct the vices such as hypocrisy, pride, avarice and nepotism.

Over the years, many Bangladeshi theatre groups have presented Molière's adapted plays on stage. However, in most cases, they have failed to maintain the essence of witty approach to the 'Comedy of Morals' concept.

However, two adaptation of Molière's plays L'Avare (Ihe miser) and The Bourgeois Gentleman have attained a huge response from the audience for their universal appeal.

In the ongoing three-day theatre festival at Alliance Francaise, which began on August 24, Molière's three plays George Dandin, Le Medicine Malgre Lui and L' Ecole des Femmes have been included. In these plays through the simple story of marriage and love, Molière satires the vices of the so-called 'fashionable elite'--their jealousy and hypocrisy.

On opening day of the 'Molière Festival', Jahangirnagar Theatre staged the translated version of George Dandin. Kalyan Kumar Datta is the translator and Nazmul Hasan Rubel is the director of the play.

On the second day Shatwik Theatre staged Pejgi, an adaptation of Le Medicine Malgre Lui. Apu Aman has adapted Molière's play in the Bangladeshi context, directed by Kamruzzaman Tupa.

On the final day, the Space and Acting Research Centre will stage Bouder Pathshala, a translation of L' Ecole des Femmes. Ashish Khondokar has adapted Bouder Pathshala from the English play The School for Wives. The latter was adapted by Miles Malson from Molière's original script L' Ecole des Femmes. Ashish Khondokar is the director of the play.