The Miser

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known by his stage name, Molière, is one of the most influential classical playwrights, whose work is still widely celebrated and performed to this day. Born in Paris in 1622 to Jean Poquelin and his wife, Marie Cressé, Molière was raised in an affluent home. After his mother passed away when he was 10, Molière moved with his father to another part of Paris. There, he enrolled at Jesuit College de Clermont, where he not only had a rigorous education, but his first exposure to theater.

At 21, he abandoned his father’s plans for him and left his lavish lifestyle behind for a life on the stage. He founded the Illustre Théâtre with actress Madeline Bejart, but the company only lasted for two years, going bankrupt in 1645. After many years of acting and producing dramas, racking up debts, and performing alongside the Italian commedia dell’arte company of Tiberio Fillero, Molière finally found success nearly 10 years later. He began to write five-act comedies in verse, relying heavily on improvisation and the commedia dell’arte style of stock characters and a vague plot. When that structure was in place, he could fill the pages with timely jokes that poked fun at contemporary French social mores.

Molière reached the height of his fame in the 1660s. Some of his most famous plays include The School for Wives (1662), Tartuffe (1664), The Misanthrope (1666), and of course, The Miser (1668). For The Miser, Molière drew upon the plot of an ancient comedy by the Roman writer Plautus, called Aulularia (“The Little Pot”), which follows the antics of the miserly Euclio as he guards his pot of gold from anyone who might try to steal it. Like The Miser, Aulularia is centered on a mishap of marriages, in which Euclio tries to marry his young daughter, Phaedria, off to an older man, who happens to be the father of Phaedria’s lover, Lyconides. The historical text is technically incomplete, as the manuscript breaks off after the very beginning of Act 5, but the script inspired numerous adaptations, of which The Miser is the most successful.

Molière’s death is infamous. He had long suffered from tuberculosis, and on February 17th, 1673, he collapsed on stage while performing one of his comedy ballets. Though he was coughing and hemorrhaging, he did his best to continue the performance to the end. Finally, he had to be taken home, where he died a few hours later. The play, The Imaginary Invalid, concerns the psychosomatic symptoms of a wealthy man named Argan, played by Molière. Molière’s lasting impact on French literature and the theatre at large is indisputable. Many of his turns of phrase have become popular French sayings, and his plays are studied and performed all over the world to this day.