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Published on 8/10/08
Video
Survey
Video
Food and garbage—both ends of consumerism—figure heavily in Belgian director Ivo van Hove’s radical vision of The Misanthrope. Turns out they’re perfect props for Molière’s bitter classic about gossip and status in a cynical society. When the egomaniacal hater of pretense Alceste (Bill Camp) interrupts his friends’ lunch to smother himself with ketchup, chocolate syrup and yogurt—making himself a living sculpture of mass-produced swill—he turns something of sustenance and civility into a trash heap of chaotic beauty.
Wildly unpredictable as this production may be, there is method behind the madness. Van Hove positions video-camera operators around the Plexiglas periphery of Jan Versweyveld’s sleek, modern set, transmitting live images onto a large wall monitor. The effect is like witnessing a weird sociological experiment in status and assimilation. On the screen we also catch glimpses of actors in a dressing room behind the set—more voyeuristic flashes of private lives behind public facades.
The director has guided his bold cast, including Jeanine Serralles, Thomas Jay Ryan, Quincy Tyler Bernstine and Joan MacIntosh, into fierce, blistering performances that accelerate emotionally from 0 to 60 in mere seconds, requiring exceptional versatility and energy. Relative newcomer Serralles holds her own against the volcanic Camp with a nervy, nuanced turn. The director may allow his multimedia effects and coups de théâtre to blur or drown out several passages of Molière’s text (in a still-cutting 1973 translation by Tony Harrison), but rarely do we see the 17th-century master’s harsh, satiric spirit so clearly presented. Van Hove’s vision of love and society seems fatalistic and purifyingly extreme; he never lets us forget that Molière was a failed tragedian.
mystic
Mon, Oct 22, 07, at 7:07pm
Should be defined by the Geneva Conventions as a form of torture. A "live" screening supposed to be synchronised with the real actors' mouthing is so distracting and annoying -- much like a badly dubbed foreign film-- that I was forced to close my eyes. When ever amateurs try the classics they resort to gimmicks to distract you and this is so here.The actors could not be heard distinctly, and this is combined with ghastly overacting and nonfunny rubbishy embarrassing direction. The movie "Moliere", a masterpiece, was everything this is not. Pure junk. I walked out after 40 minutes.
