The Misanthrope
Past productions
- London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), LAMDA 2, London
- English Touring Theatre and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse Company, Tour – UK
- The Peter Hall Company, Piccadilly Theatre, London
- Traffic of the Stage, Pentameters Theatre, Hampstead, London
- Absolute Theatre, Pentameters Theatre, Hampstead, London
- Bristol Old Vic and National Theatre, Bristol Old Vic – Theatre Royal
- National Theatre, National Theatre – Lyttelton, National Theatre and Bristol Old Vic – Theatre Royal
- Royal Exchange Theatre Company, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester and Round House, London
- National Theatre Company, The Old Vic Theatre, London
- National Theatre Company, The Old Vic, London
- The Old Vic, London
- Meadow Players, Oxford Playhouse, Grand Theatre, Swansea, and other locations
- Victoria Rooms, Bristol
- The Arts Theatre of Cambridge, Cambridge Arts Theatre and Ambassadors Theatre, London
- Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London
A play by Jean-Baptiste Molière
The Misanthrope, or the Cantankerous Lover (French: Le Misanthrope ou l’Atrabilaire amoureux) is a 17th-century comedy of manners in verse written by Molière. It was first performed on 4 June 1666 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, Paris by the King’s Players.
The play satirizes the hypocrisies of French aristocratic society, but it also engages a more serious tone when pointing out the flaws that afflict all humans. The play differs from other farces of the time by employing dynamic characters like Alceste and Célimène as opposed to the flat caricatures of traditional social satire. It also differs from most of Molière’s other works by focusing more on character development and nuances than on plot progression. The play, though not a commercial success in its time, survives as Molière’s best known work today.
Because both Tartuffe and Don Juan, two of Molière’s previous plays, had already been banned by the French government, Molière may have softened his ideas to make the play more socially acceptable. As a result, there is much ambiguity about whether the main character Alceste is intended as a hero for his uncompromising honesty, or as a quixotic fool. Molière has been the target of much criticism for The Misanthrope over the years. The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau claimed in his Letter to M. D’Alembert on Spectacles that it was Molière’s best work, but hated that it made Alceste the butt of its humor. He believed the audience should support Alceste’s high ideals rather than laugh at his misadventures.