Thoroughly Modern Moliere French Playwrightís Work Proves Timeless in ëMisanthropeí by Gary Tischler Jean Baptiste Poquelinóa.k.a. Moliereóis, like his great compatriot William Shakespeare, with us always, as alive as you and me. At least it certainly seems that way on stage, no matter what the circumstances. Although directors from high school to off-Broadway to the venerable stages of the world more often try to place Shakespeareís plays elsewhere in time and place, most productions of Moliereís plays tend to stay in the time and place familiar to the playwrightóthe France and Paris of Louis XIV, the Sun King and Moliereís great and dangerous patron. Thereís a reason that Moliere, like Shakespeare, still makes it to the stage, while the works of other playwrights from roughly the same time are rarely performed. You can find a Moliere on the schedule of many American companies almost every season, while the work of a Jean Racine or Pierre Corneilleóthe poets of French tragedyórarely makes an appearance. This is also true of Shakespeareís Spanish ri val, Lope de Vega, a playwright every bit as prolific, whose works are only rarely performed. Even Ben Johnson and Christopher Marlowe donít jump into the future as sharply as Shakespeare and Moliere. Restoration comedies, of course, are a special case: Theyíre just too much fun to simply put to rest, and their insistent impropriety begs to be performed. The test of durability is fairly simplyóitís called the act of recognition. With Shakespeare, itís all language, poetry and psychology. His characters may be kings, jesters, ladies and peasants, but they have their counterparts in the here and now. With Moliere, this is the part that practically makes him hip. You donít need to modernize his plays and characters, although Arena Stage director Kyle Donnelly jazzed things up to great effect in the í90s productions of ìSchool for Wivesî and ìThe Miser.î With Moliereís characters, the pearls shine, the swords swoop, and the gestures are about as real as a smile on a corpse. You can dress them up in their Louis XIVís baggage of wigs, buckled shoes and dresses in which you can hide several people, but we still know them. Harpagon, Tartuffe, all of themóthey jump right out of their court settings and make themselves right at home in a Georgetown salon, a press conference, a cocktail party, or a convention of doctors, policy makers, think tankers and academics. ìTartuffeî seemed especially popular in the 1980s, with its furiously cold, lustily pious control-freak character who resonated among religious con artists. Arena did ìTartuffeî too, in full Louis XIV costumes, complete with the Sun King himself descending from somewhere above and coming to the rescue, albeit, in a Reagan-sized helicopter. Now Arena is at it again with ìThe Misanthrope,î a darker, more chilling comedy that has social politics written all over it. Again, we have period costumes, but itís about our times, our people, and our period of life. Moliere was never about great writing, per se, or poetry, although the plays are written in rhymed verse. Moliereís durable quotes donít come easily to mind, but his archetypal thinking and characters do. Greed of the kind displayed by Moliereís miser was an idiotís game until ìWall Streetî refined it into a virtueóremember the motto ìGreed is good?î Look at his hypochondriacs, his incompetent doctors free from worrying about malpractice, his soaring hypocrites, his empty suits dressed for court, the women and men who have to go to school to perfect flattery and insincerity. What a worldóand itís very much our world as well. In ìThe Misanthrope,î Moliere gives us several embodiments of obsession: Alceste, the almost Puritanical truth-teller; CÈlimene, the inveterate back-stabber and gossip raised to a kind of genius; Arsinoe, who says the exact opposite of what she surely means, albeit with an extra drop of acid; Philinte, the incorrigibly reasonable man and practiced liar; and the overdressed studs who are forever marketing their virtues to such an extent that they could be masters of the universe in waiting. This is Washington, Wall Street, Main Street, backroom, boardroom, embassy party, high-end singles martini bar stuff. Alceste, if he should grow up, will someday be Ralph Nader, or a furious Christopher Hitchens. CÈlimene has been in and out of Washington administrations so oftenóthink Nancy Reagan, or, on a lesser scale, Barbara Howaró youíve seen her before, but never with such a pretty name. The only thing that Moliere did not anticipate was television, the perfect vehicle for artificiality, insincerity and artful lying. Think if Moliere had the opportunity to write a play called ìThe Anchor.î To imagine that at all is to know that Moliere is funny, which makes him important, and, somewhat like Alceste, he has a penchant to want to bite the hand that feeds him, as he did with the king himself. There is something feral in those verses, something naked and startling, like a really pretty woman who decides to take her clothes off in church or at a subcommittee hearing on homeland security. Director Penny Metropulos and translator Ranjit Bolt hold to the letter and spirit of the play while recognizing and emphasizing how modern Moliere is. Michael Emerson does something similar with his performance as Alcesteóheís dead-on perfect with the words and rhymes, but his gestures, looks of shock, pauses, and deadpan timing are all from vaudeville, sitcom, soap opera and standup comedy and are instantly recognizable. Itís interesting that Moliere was never really able to write a successful tragedyóa la the much admired and beloved Racineóbut he does have a tragic situation here: The prophet of truth-telling Alceste loves the completely shallow and beguiling CÈlimene. This, after all, happens all the time, and itís certainly a tragedy. ìThe Misanthropeî runs through Nov. 3 at the Arena Stage, 1101 6th St., SW. Tickets are $35 to $53. For more information, please call (202) 488-3300 or visit www.arena-stage.org. Gary Tischler is a contributing writer to The Washington Diplomat.