It is “a living world heritage” and also “African”. In 2022, the year of Molière’s 400th birthday, the latter will have his first translation into Wolof, accompanied by a major tour in Senegal, provided by local troops. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, born on January 15, 1622 in the Halles district of Paris, the son of an upholsterer, became under the name of Molière the author in French language the most read, played and translated in the world. Martial Poirson, specialist in this “combat author” of the Grand Siècle, invites in his exhibition “Molière, the factory of a national glory” ” to strip the legend » and discover to what extent this artist has crossed eras, continents, disciplines and cultures.
RFI : Throughout the world, Molière is celebrated as the man of the theater par excellence. After mounting this exhibition stripper », which is for you Molière today ?
Martial Poirson : Molière has a thousand faces and it was already the case in his time when journalists are always disconcerted to see that he constantly reinvents himself. His theater is never where we expected it to be. Each time when he has invented a theatrical form that works, instead of surfing on success, he invents yet another. He is someone whose work is characterized by great plasticity, great dynamics. This is undoubtedly what explains how it was able to be the subject of so much reappropriation, reinterpretation, and also instrumentalization, both by the politicians – who seized Molière, whatever the regimes in France, for four centuries – but also through the different currents and artistic movements until today.
On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of his birth : what more can we learn about Molière ?
While preparing this exhibition for three years, I carried out a fairly extensive investigation. This allowed me to discover that Molière is extremely present on the five continents. There is hardly a country where it is not present in one way or another, in forms that can be extremely different and sometimes very inventive. Therefore, Molière is not a national monument, as France has tried to make believe for centuries, but a world and living heritage, whose theater still tells extremely profound things today, including in societies which have little to do with French society at the time.
What is the contribution of foreign countries to the construction of this “ national glory » ?
In France, it is considered a kind of literary monument. Abroad, it is both known, but also a sometimes problematic reference, since it was brought by the colonizing project of France. In many parts of the world, Molière arrived with the colonists, with the colonial teachers. In some countries like Vietnam, formerly Indochina, as in part of North Africa, it was an imposed author, a forced reading. What is very beautiful with Molière’s theater is that it was very quickly reappropriated by the local elites and Molière became an author of combat, an author who accompanied postcolonial consciousness, the project of emancipation and the criticism of all forms of authority. He nurtured many dreams of independence.
So, there is the trace of this heritage in many countries, including in the lands of Shakespeare. I want as proof “Kansas City”, a former French colony, which will celebrate Molière’s 400th birthday with great fanfare with national celebrations lasting several months. Another example, Molière will be translated into Wolof this year. The doctor despite Himself will be played in many territories in Senegal, by local troupes, like an author who, through his criticism of false doctors, through his criticism of the psychosis of the disease, obviously has things to tell us today.
Are the different criticisms of society expressed by Molière universal? ?
In the theater of Molière, there is a very strong criticism of the father of the family, of the traditional structure of the family, in other words of the patriarchy. And patriarchy, whether in Europe or elsewhere, is still ideologically something to fight. So Molière’s theater supports this project. We can read it through a feminist reading grid, even if it’s anachronistic, we can also read it as a theater that denounces reports of social violence. The Bourgeois Gentleman shows the extreme violence of class prejudices, the extreme violence directed towards characters who seek to get out of their condition, to climb the social ladder.
The issue of the influence of religious belief on society is a reality in many countries around the world even today. Molière’s theater denounces it with great virulence, not in the name of an atheist position, Molière is not an atheist, but Molière is opposed to dogma, to the abusive power of faith and the church over morals. The character of Tartuffe is a director of conscience, so he is someone who wants to explain to people, in the privacy of their family, how they should behave – while not respecting the prescriptions that are the his.
Your exhibition retraces the life and work of Molière through manuscripts, old editions, sculptures, prescriptions, costumes, models, stagings, drawings and paintings… In what way is it unique? ?
The originality of this exhibition lies in its ability to bring together both heritage elements, such as a royal ordinance signed by Louis XIV himself. Or the “La Grange Register” [considéré par les Comédiens-français comme la pièce la plus précieuse de leurs collections, NDLR], actor, director of the troupe after Molière, authentic documents attested by history which are relatively few in the life of Molière, since we have no autograph manuscript. The exhibition also shows much more contemporary things: graffiti, comics, cinema, urban cultures, popular cultures… Sganarelle’s costumes come from a troupe that toured Vietnam for several years. . There are also the costumes of the Compagnie Thayeb, which played Molière for more than forty years in Morocco, in Arabic, and in costumes that have been partially reinvented. This exhibition is a kind of crossroads that tries to situate itself between heritage and contemporary creation, between France and the cultures of the world, between the historical perspective and the critical analysis of the legend that Molière inspired in spite of himself. , since all this was done to a large extent after his death.
► Molière, the factory of a national glory, exhibition at Espace Richaud in Versailles, from January 15 to April 17, 2022.