undyingking: (Default)
[personal profile] undyingking
Went to see The Hypochondriac a few days ago with some of T's workmates -- it's a new translation of the Molière comedy, by Roger McGough. If you don't know the story, it's about a wealthy hypochondriac who plans to marry his daughter to a doctor so as to get free treatment. Thanks to the intervention of a clever serving-maid, everything works out happily in the end. There's a bunch of comedic business such as people pretending to be dead, disguising themselves as other people, suggestive comic songs and so on.

The play works fine in its own terms, although a biting satire about the evils of incompetent and avaricious doctors has perhaps less resonance in C21 UK than it did in C17 France. Molière himself played the lead in the oriiginal production, and during the course of it fell ill and died, which adds a certain bitter irony. But I really didn't like this translation, or this production, much at all. McGough tries too hard, forcing in jokey rhymes and sesquipedalian scansion as though manically gurning, and he also adds a feeble attempt to make it topical with a new song at the end linking the tyranny of doctors to general tyranny of MPs' expense claims and the like. The clever maid Toinette is made into a crafty Scouse japester, which might work OK if an actual Liverpudlian actor had been cast: but the actor in the show has a rather variable accent. The set is sparse, and there's no attempt to add in physical comedy or any such thing, forcing attention to the details of the lines -- which are weakened by the modernization and topicality that McGough has crowbarred in.

A few years ago I saw Ranjit Bolt's translation of Tartuffe, which was excellent, a complete contrast. He stuck to the rhyming couplets of the original, and the resultant language had a dignity which sustained the comedy strongly. I guess Bolt was aiming for something along the lines of Shakespearian comedy, whereas McGough here has gone more for the panto feel.

Well, you might enjoy it, but I didn't really. It seemed to me really that McGough was too fond of his own comic and linguistic skills, and not respectful enough of Molière. Not meaning that C17 plays should be trated like museum exhibits, but I think that for it to be an enjoyable theatrical experience, it helps if there's a unity of tone. C17 costume and plot with C21 language is an uneasy mix.

Date: 2009-11-09 10:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bateleur.livejournal.com
C17 costume and plot with C21 language is an uneasy mix.

Although I'm quite a fan of the other way around: completely untouched language with modern costumes.

Date: 2009-11-09 11:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] undyingking.livejournal.com
Mm, I think that can be a very effective approach.

Date: 2009-11-09 11:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] secondhand-rick.livejournal.com
I once saw Julius Caesar set in an unidentified C20 South American country. Didn't work so well.

Date: 2009-11-09 10:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] secondhand-rick.livejournal.com
For some reason I can't quite identify, I don't really like Roger McGough. I suppose the fact that I tend not to enjoy poetry doesn't help, I'm sure, but besides that I find something... ... see, I can't quite identify it, about him.

Date: 2009-11-09 11:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] secondhand-rick.livejournal.com
You've hit it on the nose!

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