…watch a Molière play?

How does one translate a seventeenth century French farce and update it for modern times? Substitute Parisian society for the media-obsessed modern equivalent and include topical references to a Tory politician’s "toxic spray-on brand of fake compassion" to get a few laughs. Crank up the frothy energy, keep up the rhyming couplets, and maintain the metre. Lastly, cast a movie star as (wait for it), a movie star and watch the box office receipts take off as it becomes the hottest ticket in town.

Martin Crimp’s take on Molière’s most well known play, The Misanthrope, took a little getting used to. The rhyming can seem forced at times, the tone smug and too clever, yet it seems to capture the spirit of Molière’s most well known play.

For all the attention on Keira Knightley as Jennifer (Celimene in the original), the American movie star in London, the real star of the play was Damien Lewis as Alceste, the British playwright disillusioned by modern society and the “misanthrope” of the title. I remembered him well as Major Richard Winters in the HBO series Band of Brothers, a role which embodied the real soul of the series and its moral centre. In The Misanthrope, Lewis is far from the restrained character he portrayed previously. As A observed, he has even taken his voice a notch higher to take it from mature mellowness to a high-pitched angst.

Lewis projects the right mix of blustering anger, comic absurdity and frail vulnerability. One cares for Alceste and roots for him, even at the height of one of his hyperbolic speeches denouncing the hypocrisy of society. He remains true to his ideals in believing that one should always speak the truth, even if it exposes the hypocrisy of others and even if you suffer for it. His love for Jennifer can seem jealous and rather oppressive yet when she rejects his proposal to run away and leave the glamorous showbiz life, I genuinely felt sorry for him.

Knightley’s performance was better than I had expected. Adopting a plausible New York accent and an endearing flirty manner, her Jennifer alternates between the bitchy, gossipy movie star and the vulnerable, lonely girl who seeks solace in her love for Alceste and her old friendships. She does look impossibly thin however, in that slinky black playsuit she wears in most of the scenes.

Sadly, the play closes this week but farce appears to be in fashion at the moment, and I am looking forward to catching Noel Coward’s Private Lives sometime over the next few months.