Molière's a Bastard

The play that I got a free ticket to? Yes, it was in French. One thing I didn't mention was that it was in 17th century French, though I'm told it holds up fairly well as understandable fare for the French of today.

So the play was called George Dandin. Judging from audience reaction, it was quite funny. Certainly the set design was hot stuff, at least in the more modern Let's Not Pretend We're Actually In A Forest, Hey? school of spare design. It was a wooden circle set on the stage and tilted almost perilously toward the audience. There were nine trapdoors in this wooden platform, arranged in a square like the spaces you'd fill in in tic-tac-toe. The tic-tac-toe reference may have been intentional, but I'd have to see the text to figure that out.

Three of the trap doors had ladders poking out, which gave it a sense of depth beneath the stage that it didn't have. Furthermore, at a couple of points characters jumped off the back end and didn't make a sound when they landed - it was just like they'd jumped off a cliff, and it made for a really neat moment while I was waiting for the person to land. After half a moment I realized that they had just exited (poof) stage up. Nifty.

But as for the play? Afraid I fell asleep, but don't tell! At the end of the night, all assembled agreed it was quite well done. I nodded along with, because I liked the design and I could tell the acting was good. 'nuff said.