Dom Juan
Recognizing no “God nor master” other than his own desire, Don Juan threatens the world order, and the world takes it upon itself to remind him of that.
About this event
In 1665, after Louis XIV, under pressure from the devout, banned Molière’s troupe from performing Tartuffe, Molière decided, on the advice of his actors, to urgently write a play on a fashionable theme: Don Juan. This theme of the eternal seducer has since been reinterpreted in many ways. One may see in it, including in Molière’s play, a predator, a frustrated man, but also a man rebelling against the established order and the religion he inherited, like his name.
Molière goes beyond the theme of the unrepentant seducer. Don Juan, eternal and dissatisfied, seems more libertarian than libertine. Although he refers to his romantic conquests, he does not present him as a triumphant seducer, but rather as a spoiled, rebellious child—more opposed to the religion of men than to God himself, a naughty boy who will retreat neither before the sword nor the cross. In a way, he foreshadows the individual who would emerge in 18th-century theater.
In this production, we follow the author’s desire to break with the strict rule of the three unities in classical theater. The characters, dressed in timeless costumes, move through different sets in each act, erected throughout the scenes by small, ambiguous figures resembling Eumenides (Erinyes?), attached to Don Juan’s deeds, misdeeds and actions.
Directed by: Jean Latil Cast: Raphäel Billot, Anthony Degois, Elise Fagon, Pascal Gentil, Jean Latil, Jean-Michel Messina, Charlotte Santiago Full text.
