Les Femmes savantes ・ Comédie-Française

Palermitan director and major European artist Emma Dante is making her Comédie-Française debut directing her first Molière play.

To craft her multivocal universe rooted in body work, rhythm, and social issues, she has been digging into tales for over 30 years, drawing out a combination of piddling, sublime and outrageously burlesque poetry. Her and the Troupe are now making their way inside the Femmes Savantes salon.
Molière painted the portrait of a family shaken by conflict; some defend tradition, other embrace refined thinking and a passion for poetry, philosophy, and science. With this matrix combining humour and despair, Emma Dante seized the opportunity to display the clash of two worlds. The old world is embodied by an all-male trio complete with wigs and period costumes: Chrysale, the patriarch, his brother Ariste, and Clitandre, Henriette’s suitor. The new world is that of emancipated women; it includes the powerful wife, Philaminte, her drunk and flirtatious sister-in-law Bélise, and her firmly anti-marriage daughter Armande, the polar opposite of her sister, Henriette, whose dream is to marry Clitandre despite her mother’s threats of an arranged marriage. While the former burst out of an ancient trunk into the story, dusted off by the servants, the latter are taken over by traditional rules and stripped from their modernity. “In this story about an atypical community, there are no losers” says the director. “There is women as they fight for their rights, and the infatuated yet immature men surrounding them.” Her outside-the-box take on the 1672 play paints the portrait of a community continually fighting against its inner demons.

NEW PRODUCTION

A Comédie-Française/Théâtre du Rond-Point joint production

BOOKING OPENS IN LATE SEPTEMBER 25