TNM masters the fine art of Molière

BY PAT DONNELLY, GAZETTE CULTURE CRITICOCTOBER 7, 2011

Every member of the cast in L’École des femmes is worth watching, but the interplay between Guy Nadon as Arnolphe and Sophie Desmarais as Agnès is especially riveting. Photograph by: Yves Renaud, Courtesy of Théâtre du Nouveau Monde

MONTREAL - Théâtre du Nouveau Monde has just launched its 60th season with L’École des femmes de Molière, affirming the importance of this 17th century playwright within the repertoire of ’s flagship classical theatre.

When the company was founded, in 1951, by a group that included Jean Gascon (later to become the first Canadian artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival), the inaugural piece was L’Avare, also by Molière.

Over the years, TNM has presented 48 Molière productions, or 49, if you count a remount of Le Malade imaginaire.

In addition to Gascon, recognized founders of TNM include actor/playwright/director Jean- Louis Roux, Guy Hoffman, Eloi de Grandmont and Georges Groulx.

Also considered a hero is Mark Drouin, first president of the TNM board of directors, who managed to dig up the $5,000 to bankroll L’Avare. Roux, 88, the last surviving member of the group, was singled out for special praise at Thursday night’s anniversary celebrations. In August, a $5,000 TNM playwriting award was inaugurated in his name, with Michel Marc Bouchard chosen as the first recipient

Three actors from the original production remain with us: Gabriel Gascon, 84, brother of Jean, Janine Sutto, 90, who recently created a stir with her kiss-and-tell autobiography, and Monique Miller, 77, who replaced Ginette Letondal for the / tour.

(Although it seems unfair that the actors in L’Avare, which included the late, great Denise

Pelletier, were not credited as TNM founders, it was the norm at the time.)

This L’École des femmes, directed by Yves Desgagnés, is the company’s third production. The first, directed by Gascon for the 1964-65 season, featured Geneviève Bujold as Agnès. The second, directed by Rene Richard Cyr in 1990, featured Anne Dorval.

The latter production I remember, but this one I like better. It’s funny, accessible, a true crowd-pleaser, yet rigorous in its interpretation of what’s widely regarded as one of Molière’s finest works.

The casting is about as close to perfection as live theatre gets, with Guy Nadon giving a wonderfully multi-layered performance as Arnolphe, the middle-aged anti-romantic who thinks ignorant women are less likely to be unfaithful than intelligent ones. His friend Chrysalde (Henri Chassé, in fine form) warns him about the fallacy of his thesis. But Arnolphe is adamant that he has done the right thing by adopting a 4-year-old orphan and raising her in a convent for 13 years, thus creating the ideal, compliant woman. (So little does he understand nuns.)

Her education complete, Agnès (Sophie Desmarais, pitch-perfect) has been brought to the home of her ward, where he intends to keep her under wraps until he can persuade her to marry him.

While every woman’s blood-pressure is sure to rise during the first act of L’École des femmes, Arnolphe’s outrageous utterings are tempered by the cautionary words of Chrysalde. It’s clear from the outset that this classic misogynist is about to get his comeuppance, thereby providing the chief comedic mechanism of the play.

Unlike Shakespeare’s Petruchio, Arnolphe fails miserably in his attempts to tame a far more domestic creature than Kate. The dashing young Horace (played by Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard, an actor destined to break many hearts throughout his career) soon destroys Arnolphe’s chances. Having accidentally made the acquaintance of Agnès, he has pursued her to the house where she’s being kept a virtual prisoner. There he bumps into Arnolphe, his father’s best friend, without catching on that he’s the proprietor. He confides in the older man, not suspecting him of being a rival, which doubles the irony of an already ridiculous situation.

(Exactly why Guérard arrives looking like he’s just come from the set of The Pirates of the Caribbean, wearing a streaked, faux-dreads wig, I’m not sure. But the distraction passes.)

Director Desgagnés (his recent credits include the musical Sherazade), has used a play- within-a-play concept illustrated by a proscenium-within-a-proscenium set design (by Martin Ferland), all to brilliant effect.

The play begins with Nadon tapping the floor with a stick to open curtains, then, as an actor, picking up a script. From time to time throughout, he steps outside the second proscenium, dons his spectacles and reverts to being an actor checking his lines for the next scene.

Every member of the supporting cast, including Pierre Collin and Louison Danis as the wily servants, and Mathieu Handfield as the notary, has his or her hilarious moments.

But it’s the highly charged scenes between Nadon and Desmarais dealing with the rules of the game of marriage that prove the most riveting.

All of the theatre anniversaries that have been popping up (this year was the 50th of the Shaw Festival; next year is the 60th of the Stratford Festival; Centaur Theatre, now in its 43rd season, has already passed the four-decade mark) serve to highlight the fact that professional theatre is a relatively recent factor in Canadian culture. While theatrical production may be traced back to the 18th century, the possibility that Canadian theatre artists might earn a living at their craft arrived much later. The late Gratien

Gélinas was among the first to earn solid money at what he was doing with his Les Fridolinades revues at the Monument in the late 1930s. But it wasn’t until the 1950s that things began to percolate, to the extent that a respectable training school was needed. Hence the National Theatre School was born, in 1960. Its founding general director was Jean Gascon. Thus the destinies of TNM and NTS are entwined at the roots.

“One oft-overlooked tidbit is that TNM had five bilingual seasons (1954-59). These included a production of Come Back, Little Sheba, by William Inge, starring Lorne Greene (Bonanza), and the 1956 bilingual TNM-at-Stratford production of starring Christopher Plummer, seen in and Scotland only.”

Surprisingly, given the tumultuous nature of theatre, TNM has had only five artistic directors over the years: Gascon (1951-66); Roux (1966-82), having also served as secretary-general from 1953-63); André Pagé (1981); Olivier Reichenbach (1982-92) and Lorraine Pintal, who took over in 1992. (Pagé died just as he was stepping into the job.)

It’s interesting to note that Pintal, the only woman, has lasted the longest. And there’s no sign of her throwing in the towel yet.

L’École des Femmes, by Molière, continues at Théâtre du Nouveau Monde until Oct. 29. Call 514-866-8668 or www.tnm.qc.ca. [email protected]

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