A nicely coupled pair of plays by Corneille, both translated by Richard Wilbur. The first is Le Cid, a romance/tragicomedy about the clash between honA nicely coupled pair of plays by Corneille, both translated by Richard Wilbur. The first is Le Cid, a romance/tragicomedy about the clash between honor and love in the court of a king in medieval Spain. It's a very good drama but it doesn't feel like it's telling universal truths -- it is hard to relate to loving someone but also having to kill them because they killed your father, albeit after your father killed their father. That sort of thing. You get the idea.
The second is The Liar, which reads more like Moliere -- and according to the introduction was an influence on Moliere. It is a hilarious farce about an extravagant serial liar who can't even keep his own lies straight -- and these get him to the point that even when he is telling the truth people stop believing him. The servants are also tricky, but much better able to control their trickery and deploy it towards useful ends. All ends happily without any moral comeuppance for the liar or collateral damage from his lies....more
More exciting Moliere translated by Richard Wilbur and released this year (appears to have been translated in 2005 but not really in a publication forMore exciting Moliere translated by Richard Wilbur and released this year (appears to have been translated in 2005 but not really in a publication for readers). His second verse drama, quite enjoyable, a more complicated plot than The Bungler -- but still a relatively simple farce....more
I didn't love this as much as I wanted to. This play centers around two meetings between Bohr and Heisenberg in Copenhagen. The first in 1941, during I didn't love this as much as I wanted to. This play centers around two meetings between Bohr and Heisenberg in Copenhagen. The first in 1941, during the war, where the play conveys the 'uncertainty' (get it...) about what Heisenberg's intentions were, what happened at ...the meeting -- was Heisenberg warning Bohr about the German bomb project, deliberately sabotaging it, seeking help on it, looking for someone to spy on the Americans, etc. The second is in 1947 in which they try, unsuccessfully, to resolve that uncertainty. All of the story told in the form of dialogue between the two of them and Bohr's wife after they all have died.
It is well done, there is lots of thought-provoking dialogue and thoughts, and you can't blame Frayn for the lack of anything resembling clear resolution.
My excitement at seeing a newly published Richard Wilbur translation of a Moliere play I hadn't heard of was tempered slightly by the worry it was jusMy excitement at seeing a newly published Richard Wilbur translation of a Moliere play I hadn't heard of was tempered slightly by the worry it was just a different title for a play I had already read. (This recently happened to me with Bulgakov's A Dead Man's Memoir, and years ago I was excited to read Camus' The Outsider -- only to figure out pretty quickly it was just a different translation of The Stranger.)
According to the introductory notes, this was Moliere's first major play and the first play in verse. It is a Commedia Dell Arte that tells a stock farce plot of a bungling young man, Lelie, and his resourceful valet as they attempt to get a woman, currently held as a slave and also pursued by another young man. Every time the valet has a new scheme it gets thwarted by Lelie's bungling. It is a testament to the play that I found myself laughing just as hard the twelfth or so time the formula of valet devises a seemingly fool-proof plan to get the girl, and the fool ruins it.
Nowhere near Moliere's later plays in depth, complexity, psychological insight and development, plot etc. But Wilbur's verse translation is as witty and enjoyable as the best of Moliere -- as I suspect the original French is as well....more
