Le Bourgeois or the Poetry of Laughter

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 217 anthology as a whole: after reading it, one has no real sense of where Canadian drama as a whole is going, or even of where it has been; one concludes, in fact, that Canadian drama "as a whole" is still a meaningless concept. Our dramatists have been, up till now, isolated figures in a hostile environment - like the Czech puppet master in Robertson Davies' Fortune, My Foe. It may be significant that the dramatist who gets by far the most attention here, James Reaney, is also the most private and idiosyncratic of them all. Perhaps with the growing durability and portability of Canadian plays this situation will change; but one cannot help noticing that even recent Canadian plays are full of characters imprisoned and isolated - in jails, in wheelchairs, in darkened rooms. As I prepared this review, I received the latest play collection from a Canadian publishing house: it is a collection of monodramas. Canadian drama continues to express the isolation and rootlessness of much Canadian experience; and this is the situation that is reflected - though not, perhaps, very much illuminated - in Professor New's anthology. LE BOURGEOIS ALEXANDER LEGGATT University of Toronto OR THE POETRY OF LAUGHTER JEAN-LOUIS BARRAULT (Translation: for French original, see page 113). SEVERAL YEARS AGO the entire world celebrated the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. During 1973 the entire world celebrates the anniversary of Moliere's death. Why this distinction: are not both still alive? Whether one emerges from the void or dives back in, the phenomenon, we confess, is practically the same. However, these two geniuses of humanity appear to start from opposite points, and their treks, their "quests" lead toward each other. Shakespeare, the universal, the initiated, the Prospero-like magician first appears in all his physical and metaphysical scope - natural and supernatural, popular and fantastic. He emerges out of the greatest dimension, and his steps converge upon a stage. "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players," declares Jacques in As You Like It, not without a certain melancholy. Travelling the opposite road, Moliere, moulded in the tradition of Scaramouche and the brawls of the Pont-Neuf, rises up, bounding onto the boards like a carnival magician, and pulling the entire world out of his hat. Each of these men, the one a sorcerer, the other a joker, manipulates the 218 TRANSLATION same universe, uses the same place, and ends up with this same "strange animal," Man: intermediary between heaven and earth. Shakespeare is the COMPLETE man, Moliere is MAN, the reflection of all things. 1973 appears to be momentarily favourable to Moliere. For several years international complications, a certain general disorder, the conflict of great ideas, the international game of politics, the terrible trials of war, and the menaces of science which hover about the globe seem to reawaken in our hearts and spirits the instinct of preservation. In order to look at things a little more clearly, to regain our balance and to recover a little courage, we must tend on the whole to return to MAN. After all, it is right that in the final analysis man should be, and remain, our chief preoccupation. Moliere recovers a few points. Shakespeare, through the years, never loses any. Moliere sometimes does; his apparent simplicity is a detriment in the eyes of those who would rather "think" than "live." But what is more profound than to live fully? This is still the essence of Moliere, and when life is threatened, one returns to him. This ''year of Moliere," then, arrives at a good time, and it is hoped that the nations of the entire world will have the sense to draw nourishment, like Rabelais and La Fontaine, from the life-giving marrow. Pierre Dux, our director (when one has been a member of the Comedie Fran9aise, one never leaves it completely; there are blood ties - hence, my director) gave me the honourable and formidable task of starting off this Moliere year with Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. In spite of the mountain of difficulties which this work entails I accepted immediately. "It is so good to obey. It is like the real hunger you...