Professor David Peimer
Molière: The Great French Writer of Comedies and Satires
Summary
A broad appreciation of Molière (1622–1673), regarded as one of the greatest French playwrights, whose comedies, farces, and satires continue to resonate with audiences today and influence the work of comic entertainers like John Cleese, Billy Wilder, Mel Brooks, and others.
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
I would include Spain, Portugal, parts of Germany, definitely some parts of Eastern Europe I think as well and I don’t know enough about the Scandinavian countries, but I think I would include some of them in addition and even some of England because that tradition of the commedia dell'arte coming from ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans through the Italians spread everywhere in the whole of Europe.
If they could afford it, probably yes, because he performed in the Palace of Versailles once he was under Louis’ patronage and also in a theatre next to the Louvre, but before that he would’ve done his plays in the travelling player. Like the very last clip I showed. There’s another other clips from the film where they show the actors trying to learn the lines of his scripts and he hands out the pages, you know, what Shakespeare would’ve done, handed out the pages, there’s only one copy, you know? Here’s your five pages, here’s your three. Learn them, learn them, you know, because there was just one copy of the original of these plays when they were first performed. So he would’ve had, he shows in the movie handing out the pages, they’re got to learn them and they’re to remember the lines. They forget and, you know, it’s all chaotic. So did the common people see? Yes, because until they all got financed by Louis, they were part of this travelling player group.
Because he’s at this period in, let’s say, really the middle of the 1600s, and because his father, he’s the Keeper of the Carpets and Upholstery in the palace of the king, through his father, I think he would’ve had access to education, literature, and reading. I think if I remember his father wanted him to go to university and study. He did, I think a bit. He said he read and understood. You know, but mostly, like Shakespeare, self-taught.