MISANTHROPE at Bastille Festival 2017

MOLIERE V/S FAKE NEWS: EXCHANGE THEATRE IN THE NEWSROOM

The deepest play by Moliere presented alternately in English and French for the 10th Bastille Festival from the 13th June till the 8th July 2017
at the Drayton Arms Theatre.

Alceste is an honourable and outspoken man, in love with Célimene, a bright but slightly vain socialite. Tormented by a trial, he confides to his friend Philinte about his love and how he despises society’s complacency. His complicated love-life is then challenged even more when he abruptly witnesses the gossips and small talks going on between Célimene and her court.

In a time of ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’, Misanthrope finds unanticipated echoes in the world today. Alceste, the most loyal man in the world, lacks only one virtue: indulgence for other’s behaviours. His search for genuineness against hypocrisy, special interests and treachery calls for a new London production in 2017. With his unique touch, Off West End Best Director nominee David Furlong returns to direct, fresh from his stint at the Royal Opera House.

After the public and critical success of The Doctor in Spite of Himself, it’s a logical step for Exchange Theatre to pursue our work on Molière for the 21st century by choosing the Misanthrope. Whilst the previous play was a farce and an invitation to love and laugh, the next one is a deeper truth seeking comedy, written surprisingly at the same time. When The Doctor treated falseness in a satirical way, The Misanthrope confronts the same themes head-on. And when Sganarelle, the doctor was a buffoon, Alceste, the misanthrope is a deep thinker through whom Molière adresses the same issues, reacting to the false critics and the moral injustice.

– The Misanthrope (in English) 8pm
13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 27th, 28th, 29th June, 7th and 8th July 2017

– Le Misanthrope (in French) 8pm
20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th 30th June, 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th July 2017

Book your tickets here

Produced in association with  The Drayton Arms Theatre in South Kensington.

Supported by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Directed by David Furlong.
With James Buttling, Fanny Dulin, Luca Fontaine, David Furlong, Palmyre Ligué, Simeon Oakes and Anoushka Ravanshad!

Exchange Theatre creates a unique body of bilingual theatre productions with third-culture actors (people who grew up speaking a different first language from the one in their environment). All actors play in both languages (French and English), with actors originally from the UK, France, Iran, the Ivory Coast, Switzerland, Italy and Mauritius.

“Gossip holds civilizations together. (…) This should be good news for theatre. It means that drama may combine chatter and high rhetoric in a way that makes the profoundest human experience and deepest meanings understandable within the audience’s creative intelligence. That is what theatre is for. (…) But our gossip is debased. It no longer springs from the people’s inventiveness. It is filtered down to us by television and the big screens, distorted by the media mobs, relentless advertising and compulsive consumerism. “  Edward Bond

Contact Chris Hislop for the english PR chris.hislop@gmail.com / www.chrishislop.com or Clara Martins for the french PR  info@echangetheatre.com