Professor, alumni collaborate on new
production of 'The Misanthrope'

by Sarah R.Buchholz, Chronicle staff

Theater professor Virginia Scott and alumnus Robert Wu discuss "The Misanthrope" in Scott's office. (Sarah Buchholz photo)

mherst theater-goers will have a rare opportunity next week to see a commissioned play before it makes its professional debut in San Francisco. The local production of the new English verse version of Moliere's "The Misanthrope" by alumna Constance Congdon, '82G, is being directed by Theater professor Virginia Scott, stars alumnus Robert Wu, '97, and runs Oct. 18-21 in the Curtain Theater.

     The play was commissioned from Congdon by the American Conservatory Theater, where it opens Oct. 25.

     When she got the commission, Congdon, who teaches playwrighting at Amherst College, called her one-time mentor Scott to see if she would provide a literal translation from the original French play for Congdon to work from. Scott, who already had decided to direct the play this year, agreed.

     "Because she's just written this biography of Moliere, she's probably the most noted Moliere biographer right now in English, and she knows the play very well," Congdon said of Scott. "She gave me a prose translation with about 160 footnotes and then with word choices to contextualize some of the events of the play, because she knows the history. I had the best store of information I could have to make my choices.

     "It took about two and half to three months to put it in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets—and that was working all the time—to make both deadlines for the production at UMass and the one in San Francisco."

     "She worked hard to use the standard American English without using slang," Scott said, "to keep it fresh and keep it American. It seems to me to be a very alive translation. I think this is one of the closest translations to the original that I've encountered, and maybe that's because there were two of us working on it."

     Scott's book, "Moliere: A Theatrical Life," was released Sept. 29 by Cambridge University Press and is the first full-length biography in English since 1930. The biography gave her a point of view from which to approach the play.

     "It certainly informs the way I see the play and direct it," she said. "The play is very heavily influenced by his own experience. Moliere wrote the lead parts for himself and his wife. They had a notoriously edgy relationship. Not to say that the play is biography..., but I think that if he and his wife had had a different relationship, it would have been a very different play.

     "Although [the male lead, Alceste] is a misanthrope and he is contemptuous of his society ... the heart of the play is a man who is obsessively in love with someone. And I think the heart of the love story, what's between them, is sexual attraction."

     Moliere was 20 years older than his wife, and one of the difficulties of the play is understanding what the female lead sees in her lover, an "angry, misanthropic man," Scott said. Because of the central element of attraction, Scott wanted to cast a younger, sexier actor in the lead male role than is usually the case.

     "I thought it would be really interesting to bring back an alum [to play Alceste]," she said. She contacted Wu because she remembered a performance of his three years ago.

     "The last summer he was here, he did a show where he showed such enormous passion and rage. I knew he could be really attractive and really angry and that he is someone who does more than that [too], and I'm very grateful [that he is doing the show] because he should be in New York working on his career."

     Until about four days before rehearsal began Wu was doing just that. After acting in a Williamstown production earlier in the summer, he did Shakespeare in the Park in New York, which ran through the rest of the summer.

     Wu said he was happy to be able to include the appearance in his schedule because "I get to come back and do one final show. It's a wonderful role that I probably would never have the opportunity to play in the professional theater world of New York or Chicago."

     Scott, who plans to retire after next semester, is looking forward to working on a number of projects, including a joint effort with French professor Sara Maddox, traveling, writing a book on actresses in 17th- and 18th-century France, and spending time with her grandchildren, but she is enjoying this year.

     "I've had a very good time working on this, a very good time working with Connie and a wonderful time working with this cast. This is my way of saying to the department, 'There is just one more thing...'"

     A few tickets for "The Misanthrope" remain. They cost $7 general public, $4 students and seniors. To order, call the Fine Arts Center Box Office (5-2511).