Evening Standard - London, June 8th, 2000
MANY of Molire's contemporaries lamented the regression of this 1671 comedy into the more infantile, commedia dell'arte slapstick of his roots.
But Jean-Louis Benoit's production for La Comdie-Franaise, in the Barbican's BITE:00 season, positively revels in this fact.
The style of his production exuberantly draws on choreographed buffoonery as the titular valet cheekily hoodwinks two misery-gut patriarchs. However, the play also has the darker currents of a childish revenge fantasy and, being French, Benoit seeks to make something cleverer of this.
Also performed in French, it can be tricky...
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