Nehad Selaiha rediscovers the healing power of laughter in Paul Mitri's Molière at AUC One afternoon at Cambridge University, during an international summer seminar on literature in the mid-1990s, British novelist Margaret Drabble, who had recently taken up biographies, was asked by one of the guest scholars how much fiction goes into the writing of other people's lives, or indeed of one's own. With biographies as with historical novels, she said, the subject had to be scrupulously researched; one had to stick to the facts, verify persons, dates and places. In a biography, however, one was not free to invent incident and character. Nevertheless, in the best biographies, like Peter Ackroyd's of Charles Dickens and T S Eliot, she added, one found a lot of fiction, if by fiction one understands the actual art of writing, the organisation of the material, the analysis of character and motive and the interpretation of actions and deeds. A novelist, she asserted, cannot help but bring her writing skills, intelligence and experience to bear on her material when doing a biography; inevitably, therefore, and however objective and detached she consciously tries to be, the work becomes her own reading of someone else's life and, as such, as much a reflection of her as of her subject. In the final analysis, she concluded, a biography is but one among many possible narratives, all valid, but none absolutely definitive -- one version of a complex truth that no one can ever fully encompass even when all the facts have been recorded. The truth of Drabble's insight was brought home to me once more by Paul Mitri's Molière -- an original dramatic account of the life, times and art of Jean- Baptiste Poquelin (otherwise known as Molière) which he directed for the AUC performing arts department and was shown at the Falaki Centre last week. Beginning at the end, at the moment of Molière's death after a performance of Le Malade Imaginaire, the play takes the form of a long flashback which traces, like a Bildungsroman, the hero's formative years and development, through a turbulent professional career with many ups and downs, into a great all-round homme de théâtre -- actor, dramatist, theatre manager and the equivalent of a modern director. Except for the imagined (but quite plausible) early association between the Italian commedia dell'arte artist, Tiberio Fiorelli (alias Scaramouche, with whom Molière shared the Theatre du Petit-Bourbon, near the Louvre for a season in 1658 by an order of the king) and the 20-year-old Jean-Baptiste sometime before 1643, of which I could find no record, or allowing the Prince de Conti to inveigh against theatre, berate Molière for immoral doings and accuse him of atheism to his face in 1657 rather than in a written treatise (Traité de la comédie) in 1666, Mitri's new play observes strict historical veracity and presents the facts in their proper chronological order. At no point, however, does it come across as the work of a detached observer. Like the finest biographical dramas about artists -- e.g. Edna O'Brien's Virginia (which focusses on the famous novelist's mental state before her suicide and her relationships with Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Leonard Woolf), Terry Eagleton's Saint Oscar (which replays Oscar Wilde's notorious trial), Jean-Paul Sartre's Kean (where the early 19th Century great Shakespearean actor, Edmund Kean, is pictured as a romantic, almost Byronic hero and the object of high society's fascination and horror), Edward Bond's account of Shakespeare's mood in his last years in Stratford in Bingo, Pam Gems's portrait of Edith Piaf in Piaf, or Peter Shaffer's of Mozart in Amadeus -- Molière is consistently informed with passionate admiration and warm affection for its subject. Though it never turns a blind eye to his faults and failings, these are always viewed with profound sympathetic understanding and presented with tolerant, loving humour. The message (if one can call it that) that one carries away from the performance tells as much about Mitri as Molière. It speaks of a passionate theatre-lover, with boundless creative energy, who cannot survive away from the boards, the paint-boxes and tiring-rooms and only finds his freedom, fulfilment and sense of integrity there, but knows full well that theatre is a risk-all game and that the only way to get there and stay there is through dedication, hard work, discipline and responsible choice. A man who is fully aware of the dangers and threats that beset his profession, especially in our part of the world, and is anxious to alert us to them and determined to defend it to the end. An artist who knows in his bones that since theatre is heightened reality, a mask which speaks the truth, it cannot bear pretension, affectation, or lying in any form and who loathes and ridicules any division between popular and elitist, low and high culture. Popular forms -- cinema, television and musical comedy -- as well as the older slapstick farce, burlesque sketch, or comic strip, are for Mitri as much legitimate sources of inspiration as classical, or Shakespearean drama and baroque music. The Molière we come across in Mitri's play can be cowardly and callous at times, mercenary, hypocritical, rash, vain or fulsomely fawning on royalty and the aristocracy at others. But this is the man. Against him, Mitri sets the artist, his talent, perseverance and many painful sacrifices; his proficiency, single- minded dedication to his profession and honest recognition of his shortcomings; above all his ardent passion for theatre and fascination with the art of performance. And the artist more than redeems the man. What unites Molière the man and Molière the artist and ultimately reconciles them is a profound faith, shared by both, in the corrective and healing power of laughter. Without the ability to laugh at himself and his misfortunes, the man could have hardly survived; and it is this quality which endears him to us and makes us forgive him. For the artist, on the other hand, laughter spells hard work and knowledge -- the need to "hone ... skills to precision" and to closely observe and empathise. As master Fiorelli tells the apprentice Jean-Baptiste: it is easy to criticise or satirise; but to mock, one needs to thoroughly know and rehearse in one's body and imagination the intended object of one's mockery. For the artist in the play, laughter is also a road to truth, a ripper of masks, a symbol of rebellion, a test of intelligence, an antidote to bigotry and fanaticism, a liberation and celebration of life's energy and the most effective weapon the weak, poor and marginalised can wield in the face of coercive authority and social injustice. The contrast between the two sides of Molière, the man and the artist, which acts as generative matrix in this text, is thematically replayed in his dual -- personal/professional -- relationships first with Madeleine then Armande Bejart, and has given the play a highly theatrical structure based on the alternation and juxtaposition of dramatised biographical material with famous scenes from the plays -- namely, The Imaginary Invalid, The Flying Doctor, Sganarelle or the Imaginary Cuckold, The Affected Ladies, School for Wives and Tartuffe. In the setting too, as indicated by the stage directions in the text, and, therefore, visually, in performance, fact and fiction, life and art are craftily contrasted in the twin identity of the stage and its constant redefinition as either real/virtual space, or fictional backstage (out of view of a fictional 17th century audience but in full view of a real one) cum actual performance space, facing a real audience (us), cast in the role of a 17th Century fictional one while preserving our temporal, contemporary status. The principle of contrast which dominates the structure, the central (Molière-Madeleine-Armande) romantic interest and the handling of real/imagined, actor/spectator space in the play, extends to the characterisation and thematic patterning of the material, spawning a series of contrasting pairs or groups: the Poquelins-the Bejarts, Louis XIV-the Prince de Conti, Tiberio Fiorelli-Dominico Biancolelli, the liberal court-the stuffy church, la Troupe du Roi-the company of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, the aristocracy-the middle classes and tradesmen represented by M Poquelin, Mlle De Scudery, Mme De Rambouillet, the absent Comte de Modene, the Marquis who courts Armande's favour near the end and, of course, Paris versus the provinces and tragedy versus the commedia dell'arte. This intricate web of interrelated contrasts defines the world of the play into which the young prospective lawyer, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin is pitched and has to sacrifice everything -- family, title, social status, financial security and even his name and become a nonentity and an outcast -- in order to recreate himself as the great Molière we know. Torn between conflicting interests and forces -- personal, professional and political -- he seems like a man juggling so many balls all at once and careful not to drop any as he edges his way forward, trying to keep his balance. In the writing, Mitri set himself a similar challenge -- to juggle so many thematic balls, all at the same time, without letting any drop. As the play progressed, and the balls -- the vital relationships and focal conflicts in Molière's life -- multiplied, the challenge grew, becoming more intense. But at no time did Mitri relent, allow his attention and concentration to waver, or opt for an easy way out. Up until the end, we were kept suspensefully watching him juggling Molière's relationships with Madeleine Bejart and her sister against those with the king, the court, the church, the debtors, the audience, high society, his own actors, vicious professional rivals, old masters and mentors, and even his long, estranged father. It was a masterful authorial feat only paralleled by his dexterity in managing his actors. As much of the loving care, precision and meticulous attention to detail that went into the writing of the text was lavished on the young AUC performers who had to juggle parts around as fast as Mitri juggled themes and scenes and Molière juggled balls. Imagine a cast of nine, doing 37 different characters (the same number as Molière's plays) in a story which spans 40 years and having to constantly change costume, accent, tone and gait at breakneck speed. Nothing could be more demanding, even for a seasoned, professional troupe. Like the young Poquelin in the play, Mitri is a reckless optimist, and in his case, as in Molière's, it paid. But it took hard work and months of arduous training and endless rehearsals to hone the skills of the cast to precision -- as Molière did with his troupe before leaving the provinces for Paris. One could not believe it when at the end of the show only nine actors came on to take their bows. Of the nine, only Luke Lehner (as Molière) and Lulie El-Ashry (as Madeleine Bejart) had one character to tackle, but doubling and trebling in parts seemed mandatory for all. In their case, neither the temporal scope of the play nor its structural juxtaposition of biographical data with scenes from the plays allowed any respite. They had always to be alert to the changes that come with aging as their characters moved from 20 to 30 to 50 and, at the same time, move over into Molière's fictional world at a moment's notice to impersonate his characters. To make it more physically taxing and nerve-racking (and not just for the actors, but for the work team behind the scenes as well) Mitri insisted on fast changes, split-second timing and an overall galloping rhythm. The play wouldn't have worked otherwise. The wonder of it is that none of the young nine actors slipped or showed signs of strain. Lehner was stunning, consistently effervescent and unfailingly versatile; El-Ashry was lovable, credible and deeply moving; Asser Yassin handled both Poquelin père and Louis XIV with competence; Ratko Ivekovic was magnificent as the Italian comedian Fiorelli and superbly funny as La Grange and Sahdi Alfons gave a delightful, concise and sharply-delineated caricature of Dufresne, the director of the travelling company Molière and his actors join after the failure of their Illustre Théâtre. Equally zestful, colourful and superbly executed were Mariam Ali Mahmoud's Mme De Rambouillet, Dalia El- Guindy's Mlle De Scudery, Noha El-Nahas's capricious, giddy Armande Bejart and Hani Seif's early Bernier and later Prince de Conti. Hand in hand with Mitri, Heidi Hoffer (the scenery/ light designer), Carrie Lawrence (costume designer), Ramsi Lehner (sound designer), Hoda Baraka (stage manager), Hazem Shebl (technical director) and an army of assistants, those wonderfully dedicated, hardworking young people gave a passionate homage not only to Molière but to theatre, past and present, and to every member of the thespian tribe.
