Lilian, Valeria (the language instructor, not the actress) and I went to a new staging of the Moliere play "The Learned Women" (Las Mujeres Sabias in Spanish, Les Femmes savantes in French.) last night at teatro San Martín on avenida Corrientes.
What a great outing! The staging, the acting and even the music were simply brilliant. We were in the front row of the balcony, on the rail, with a panoramic view of the stage, the audience and the orchestra.
The play was in some ways vintage Moliere, in other ways a significant departure, especially in its use of well educated women to skewer pedantry. Sexism? I think not within the context of the play. Indeed, it is more often the inept men in the play who make the point for Moliere. There are the usual intrigues and subplots, from scheming courtiers to seemingly dashed hopes for love, with the ultimate triumph of fidelity over duplicity and especially experience over pedantry, which is part of Moliere's larger point. | |
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The play was updated by the Argentine director, with a mix of modern and 17th century dialogue that never felt contrived or untrue to the original spirit of the play. Even Moliere's wicked sense of satire receives an intriguing treatment. In a discussion of "canards," with several royals on a bird hunt with shotguns (in 1672!), a giant semi-transparent screen drops down center stage and turns into a live video game, with the royals shooting at ducks flying across the screen between exchanges of witty dialog. This mix of modern kitsch and classic period piece was done so seamlessly and so much in the spirit of Moliere's ironic wit, it felt completely natural.
After the play, we walked a few blocks down the street for a late dinner at the supurb Parrilla Lalo (fittingly located on Calle Montevideo). The crowd was studded with Argentine TV and cinema stars, with Lili, ever the film critic, and after several glasses of Fond du Cave malbec, lamenting, tongue in cheek, the "baja calidad de los famosos Argentinos." Ja, ja, the "low quality of Argentine celebrities." And where, we are meant to ask, are the high quality celebrities to be found?It was a night of visual and aural treats at the theater, followed by a dinner full of laughter, good food and engaging conversation. What more could one possibly ask except for better quality celebs! We shared a taxi back to our respective destinations and exchanged glowing (and witty!) emails the next day.
