Sganarelle ou le Cocu imaginaire ・ Comédie-Française

“Sganarelle, an emblematic character of Molière’s theatre, whom Molière played himself in the seven plays in which he features, draws the origin of his name from the Italian verb sgannare, which means ‘to open the eyes’, and by extension ‘to bring to light what one does not know or wishes to ignore, to make one understand the truth’!

One could not hope for a better guide to Molière’s theatre, a complex body of work behind its apparent simplicity, in which, beyond the voracious energy and the joyful vitality of the farce, a darker, more violent world is revealed upon closer reading. This is undoubtedly where we may find the timelessness and universality of an author who was attached to humanity in all its vulnerability and pain.

In Le Cocu Imaginaire, the violence of the emotions grips us from the very beginning of the play. Paternal violence towards young women, despair, the desire for death, murder, jealousy, revenge, blindness, cowardice and shame. These flaws, pushed to the extreme here, strike us on our first reading. But Molière’s comic genius is to present them to us under the disguise of farce, the grotesque and ridicule, and allows us, through laughter, to exorcise the unease we feel when we think we recognise ourselves in them a little!

This proposal, due to the proximity of the acting and the performance it requires, will allow us to probe more intimately and deeply into the characters’ disarray. Without forgetting the powerful and jubilant vitality that underlies the work and makes Sganarelle, in a way, Molière’s jester, denouncing all humanity’s faults while wearing their mask."

Thierry Hancisse

With the patronage of François Jerphagnon