15 January 2022 may be the 400th anniversary of the birth of the famous French playwright, theatre director and actor Molière – the word "maybe" is because of whether he was born on this day or not, there is ambiguity in the record.
In fact, because he himself was reluctant to proclaim himself to death, and because the only one of his four sons who lived to adulthood accidentally lost all kinds of documents, including most manuscripts, left by his father during his lifetime, much of the personal information of the world's most popular French-language writer for four hundred years became "questioners": his birthday, his birthplace (it is generally recorded that he was born in Paris, but as early as 1947 there were commentators who claimed that he was actually born in the small central city of Pezenas), his name (Molière was only a pen name). His real name is generally considered to be Jean Baptiste. Berkland Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, but controversial), his burial place (he died late on the night of 17 February 1673, like many actors of the time who died before declaring "washing hands in the golden basin", was hastily buried overnight at the foot of the large cross of Le cimetière Saint-Joseph in the St. Joseph's Cemetery in Paris, and later moved to the Museum of monuments to the French Revolution, Le musée des Monuments fran ais à la Révolution, buried in 1817 at the present address - within the Cemetery of Father Lachaise in France Le cimetière du Père-Lachaise, the tomb side of the tomb of the great writer La Fontaine, but Flesges Forestier, author of the Biography of Molière, insists that "from the first burial it was mistaken, and the remains that are now sleeping in the Molière cemetery are not his own)... But one thing is true: for four hundred years Molière has been omnipresent in France and in french-speaking parts of the globe.
Regardless of where he was born, Molière stole away from the Wandering Troupe on 23 and toured france for 13 years before finally settling in Paris. Although he was favored by the Bourbon dynasty and the king after he became famous, he was not willing to become the "canary" of the royal family, but on the one hand, he was pungent and ridiculed the "big men", and on the other hand, he tried to create comedies that were popular with ordinary people. Over the past 400 years, French society has changed and the form of government has changed again and again, and this sweet liquor has inevitably become the poison of the other, but Molière has been loved by people from the king to the "sans-culotte" (referring to the french urban working class), from the ultra-left to the extreme right, from Parisians to provincials, from Marxists to French nationalists. French literary historian Christian. Christian Rioux found that in 400 years there were only two french figures who explicitly "opposed Molière", one was the Great Emperor Napoleon I (Napoléon I) and the other was the Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau – and the reasons for their "opposition" were intriguing: Napoleon I personally annotated the Complete Works of Molière. This shows that he actually liked to read Molière's works, but he resolutely banned Molière's most famous satirical comedy, Tartuffe, which even Louis XIV had opened his eyes and allowed to be "purified", on the grounds that "this play would seriously threaten the social order of the empire"; Rousseau was firmly opposed to drama, believing that "unnecessary entertainment" would "corrupt the whole morality and society", and Molière's comedy "is precisely the most terrible and effective corrosive agent", it may be said, This is actually the funniest compliment to Molière's comedy.
The most vivid symbol of Molière's "four hundred years of immortality" is the Comédie-Fran aise, affectionately known as the "Maison de Molière".
In 1680, King Louis XIV of France decided to merge the Molière Company with another to form the Comédie de France, just 7 years after Molière's death. Since then, the world's oldest troupe, which still performs regularly, has regularly staged Molière comedies every year, and since 1799 the "House of Molière" has been settled in salle Richelieu, near the French Royal Palace, just a few steps from where Molière lived and died for a long time.
The "House of Molière" is almost everywhere traces of Molière, indicating that he is the uncompromising owner of the place: the hall houses busts of some of the most famous playwrights, directors and actors of four hundred years, Molière occupies the "C position", generations of actors are popular for touching molière statues, and believe that this will bring them good luck; the display cabinet in the hall is placed an antique wooden armchair, February 17, 1673, When Molière starred in the comedy Le Malade imaginaire (Le Malade imaginaire) in his last stage performance, he sat in this chair to face the audience with a painful expression, and died that night, this precious chair was used as a prop until 1879, Agathe Sanjuan, director and archivist of the French Comedy Museum, said that this was the only treasure of the town hall that Molière left to the "House of Molière", "It is here, It was as if We thought Molière was still sitting there."
Of course, Molière left more imprints: his death record was written in a quill pen in a register named after His close assistant, La Grange, who played Dom Juan; one of his hats and a table inscribed with the words "Molière." But today these precious artifacts are kept in the museums of the French Library.
Today, the "House of Molière" is still one of the world's top theatre companies, with 400 employees, 70 professions, 60 full-time actors, and a three-story performance hall that can perform four plays at the same time. The division of labor here still follows the strict and meticulous standards of the Molière era, with an average of 50-70 exquisite costumes produced by the troupe for each officially performed Molière comedy, and the most representative theatrical costumes are now preserved in the "Molière House", which has accumulated as many as 50,000 sets in four hundred years.
Molière laid down unique rules for the troupe: the hiring of class owners and the autonomy of actors. The new actors are hired as one-year extras called "pensionnaires", after which a 7-member actors committee votes on whether to hire the "resident" as a full-time actor named "member" (member). The 7-member actor committee is all selected by the "members" and voted by all the "members", and only they have the right to decide which "member" to hire or dismiss, and the class owner shall not interfere. In January 2021, the "House of Molière" welcomed its 538th "member" in 400 years , actress Dominic. Dominique Blanc. In addition to Molière himself, none of the members of the "House of Molière" are without exception, eric Ruf, who is both the general manager of the troupe and an actor, said that "the annual must perform Molière repertoire" and "always defend the rules of the Management of the Molière Company" are "the eternal iron law of the Molière House", because "the true meaning of the longevity of this troupe lies in this".
2022 marks the 400th anniversary of Molière's birth, and on January 15, the "House of Molière" unveiled its most powerful "birthday gift": the "original" "Hypocrites" compiled and restored by Fleischer and another theater historian, Isabelle Grellet. It turned out that when The Hypocrite was performed in 1664, its sharp criticism attracted strong resentment from the apologists, forcing the king to ban the performance, and Molière had to spend five years to change a "clean book", that is, the five-act version that people see from public performances, publications and textbooks today, while the original three-act version was long lost because of the fault of Molière's son. On the eve of "Four Hundred Years of Molière", two theatre historians took pains to adopt the method of "theatrical genetics", successfully restoring the long-lost three-act version of "The Hypocrite" from countless four hundred years ago critics, media reports, private diaries and novel chapters, and directed by the famous Belgian director Ivo van Hove. On the day of the premiere, 200 theaters in 7 countries around the world simultaneously broadcast the performance scene, which was a unique and shocking scene for Molière.
The "House of Molière" has already announced that its entire 2022 season "will be dedicated to the great Molière alone", that is, only the works of Molière will be rehearsed.
Molière belonged to the whole of France: since 1871, every edition of French primary and secondary school textbooks included Molière's works, which made his name and works known in France. In the atmosphere of commemorating the "Four Hundred Years of Molière", not only the "House of Molière", but dozens of large and small troupes throughout France are performing Molière comedies, including professional troupes in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and other places, as well as naïve secondary school students - at the end of December 2021, 12 students aged 16-18 from Lycée Montaigne in Paris rehearsed excerpts from the three-act version of "Hypocrites" to pay tribute to this milestone in French cultural history. Zélie Henock, a 17-year-old high school girl who plays the "daughter," said Molière and The Hypocrites "definitely still have extremely important practical significance in today's society."
Regrets are there after all: French President Emmanuel Macron recently rejected applications from the famous actor and director Francis Huster, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and the chairman of the Ile-de-France Regional Committee, Valérie Pécresse, to move Molière's body to Le Panthéon, on the grounds that "the Pantheon is a symbol of the Enlightenment, Only those who defend the Republic and its ideals can enter", Molière died before the birth of the First French Republic, and therefore "is not allowed". Many critics have pointed out bitterly that Macron was simply pandering to some of the radical voters in the 3 months leading up to the election, and that the great Molière had the misfortune of becoming an innocent victim of the party's war.
But what is this? As Gallimard, France's most famous publisher, said, nothing could prevent the French from celebrating in one thousand and one of the most solemn ways the four-hundredth birthday of the world's most read, published, performed and adapted into the most films and television works, and translated into the most foreign languages.
On January 15, France-24 tv put it simply: French is the "Language of The Langue de Molière" of the French population, and Molière is a central part of French culture.