A DOCTOR IN SPITE OF HIMSELF, Yale Repertory Theatre, 2011

Monsieur de Molière: A Life So Theatrical! A Wit Quite Fantastical! The quintessential Parisian, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, who later invented for himself the moniker Molière, was born in 1622, the son of a Royal Court upholsterer. To cheer him up after the death of his mother, Poquelin’s grandfather introduced him to the performing arts at age ten; a fiery passion for the theatre ignited in the boy’s heart, and from that moment his constant desire was to enchant audiences with his acting. He received an education in philosophy and law at the Collège de Clermont but eschewed the inheritance of his father’s title to found the Théâtre Illustre with his lover-collaborator, the actress Madeleine Béjart. The venture flopped disastrously, and the backlash Molière suffered for his poor skills as a tragedian struck him like a kick in the teeth. The troupe hit the road and played in the French provinces for twelve years, where their fortunes went from vagrancy to celebrity upon the inclusion of Molière’s first comedies in the repertory. They returned to Paris,

Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook

A DOCTOR IN SPITE OF HIMSELF, Yale Repertory Theatre, 2011

Published on May 31, 2012

David Geffen School of Drama at Yale | Yale Repertory Theatre

“Playing doctor” takes on a whole new meaning as a marital squabble escalates into comic pandemonium. The spirited Martine exacts revenge on her scoundrel of a husband, Sganarelle, by convincing the town that he’s the best doctor around and that he can cure any ailment. But the trickster turns the tables on his wife—and everyone else—with his own definition of “in sickness and in health.” Bursting with slapstick physical comedy, naughty innuendo, and irreverent hijinks, A Doctor in Spite of Himself marks the return to Yale Rep of Christopher Bayes and Steven Epp, whose The Servant of Two Masters had audiences and critics alike in stitches—including The New York Times, which rejoiced, “Now that’s theatre!”