This play, based on the relationship between Moliere and the king, provided a rare experience in my career. It was commissioned by the New Rose Theatre, where I was resident playwright. I wrote most of it in Bend, where I was house-sitting, in the early 1980s.
The first bump in the road was that I became more interested in another new play. This was the Rajneesh era in Oregon, the Bhagwan was on a vow of silence, and instead of working on the commission I took a side trip and wrote Christmas at the Juniper Tavern. My artistic director was furious! But I assured him I would meet my deadline, and I did. And JT became my biggest hit.
But I was not happy with the Moliere play, at that time called The Comedian In Spite of Himself (the director's title). It was three acts and sprawling. The artistic director loved it, but not I. I wanted to withdraw it. We reached a compromise: I continued to rewrite (read, cut) during the run! This is extraordinary. Of course, the actors hated it: every Monday they got new pages throughout the six week run. By the end, I'd cut a half hour from the play. It was a success but I still thought it was too long.
My deal was that the theater got a percentage of future royalties for the first five years of the play's post-premier life. So I shelved it! I forgot about it. I found it cleaning my office over a decade later.
This time I rewrote it as Sad Laughter, a TWO act play. I loved it. I directed it myself at a staged reading at a college and polished it.
Later I turned it into a screenplay. My agent at the time said it was the best screenplay he'd ever read. But he couldn't sell it. (From a screenwriter in the documentary Tales From the Script: "The biggest myth in Hollywood is that the script is everything. The script is nothing. What matters are attachments.")
Here are the play and screenplay, published in paperback:
The first bump in the road was that I became more interested in another new play. This was the Rajneesh era in Oregon, the Bhagwan was on a vow of silence, and instead of working on the commission I took a side trip and wrote Christmas at the Juniper Tavern. My artistic director was furious! But I assured him I would meet my deadline, and I did. And JT became my biggest hit.
But I was not happy with the Moliere play, at that time called The Comedian In Spite of Himself (the director's title). It was three acts and sprawling. The artistic director loved it, but not I. I wanted to withdraw it. We reached a compromise: I continued to rewrite (read, cut) during the run! This is extraordinary. Of course, the actors hated it: every Monday they got new pages throughout the six week run. By the end, I'd cut a half hour from the play. It was a success but I still thought it was too long.
My deal was that the theater got a percentage of future royalties for the first five years of the play's post-premier life. So I shelved it! I forgot about it. I found it cleaning my office over a decade later.
This time I rewrote it as Sad Laughter, a TWO act play. I loved it. I directed it myself at a staged reading at a college and polished it.
Later I turned it into a screenplay. My agent at the time said it was the best screenplay he'd ever read. But he couldn't sell it. (From a screenwriter in the documentary Tales From the Script: "The biggest myth in Hollywood is that the script is everything. The script is nothing. What matters are attachments.")
Here are the play and screenplay, published in paperback:
The play:
THE CAST:
Moliere, the great French playwright
Armande, his young wife, an actress
Madeleine, his former mistress, an actress
La Grange, Moliere's friend and an actor, the narrator, who plays many roles
THE SET:
A unit set, for quick changes of place.
THE TIME AND PLACE:
Paris and elsewhere, 1658-1673
(Excerpts from Moliere's work in verse translations by Richard Wilbur. Used with permission. Adaptations from Moliere's work in prose by Charles Deemer.)
(ACTOR'S NOTE: Moliere has a slight stutter when he is upset. This is only occasionally noted in the text but the actor should be aware of this and use it to effect.)
ACT ONE
prologue/
(A DARK STAGE: and we hear the voice of LA GRANGE in the darkness:)
LA GRANGE (V.O.): In darkness is the proper place to start
Our play, for darkness holds the human heart
In profound mystery. Who can look
Into the heart of man and find the hook
On which to hang a life? —Naked, stark:
A piece of meat called man. But the mark
Of man is not so easily drawn.
(And a SPOT comes up on LA GRANGE on stage, as narrator.)
LA GRANGE: —Moliere:
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, my friend: but where
To start? He suffered, yes; so do we all.
He laughed. He . . . laughed. I think he'd be appalled
To hear me say he cried. I saw him once
And, catching him, I saw him play the dunce
He knew so well on stage. It was as if
No pain, no grief, no agony or rift
Was worth a tear except to shed on stage
For all to see, in this way to assuage
What, privately, he could not share. This man
I loved, who taught me all I understand
About the stage, I hardly knew. Begin
In darkness, then:
(And the LIGHTS begin a SLOW FADE:)
LA GRANGE: What clarity we win
Will rise between the darkness we see now
And the certain night that gets us anyhow.
(It is DARK.)
LA GRANGE (V.O.): Begin in darkness:
sixteen sixty-three:
In Paris, two players rehearse a scene.
1/ at the theater
(THE LIGHTS RISE ON ARMANDE AND MADELEINE, who are rehearsing the opening scene from "The Critique of the School for Wives." ARMANDE is six months
pregnant.)
MADELEINE: "Cousin, has no one called on you?"
ARMANDE: "Not a soul."
MADELEINE: "Then we've both been alone all day — which surprises me."
ARMANDE: "I'm surprised as well. Ordinarily all the court loafers would be dropping by your house."
MADELEINE: "I miss them; it's made the afternoon very long."
(LA GRANGE quickly enters. He is visibly upset about something.)
LA GRANGE: Where's Jean?
ARMANDE: Isn't he at his desk?
LA GRANGE: He wasn't a moment ago.
MADELEINE: Is something the matter?
LA GRANGE: The Hotel players are starting to play dirty.
The screenplay:
FADE IN:
SUPER
"Paris, 1663"
EXT. PARIS - STREET - DAY
A chaotic mass of humanity and animals that makes even a contemporary rush hour look like order itself.
A gutter of filthy water runs down the center of the street, not along the sides.
PARISIANS move through the streets in all directions. They have to dodge CARRIAGES, WAGONS and CARTS, as well as DONKEYS, MULES, HORSES, DOGS and other animals.
STREET PEDDLERS are everywhere, selling vegetables and pastries, needles and barrels, water and brandy.
A covered wagon pulled by a mule moves slowly down the street. At the reins is WAGNER.
MICHEL BARON, 15, sees the wagon and calls out.
MICHEL BARON: Herr Wagner!
He runs to the wagon.
MICHEL BARON (CONT'D): I'll do it!
WAGNER: It didn't take you long to decide.
MICHEL BARON: I want to be an actor. At least this is a start.
INT. BISTRO - DAY
A crowded watering hole and meeting place for the men of Paris.
MONTFLEURY, 30s, sits at a table with PRINCE DE CONTI, 40s. They speak in hushed tones.
PRINCE DE CONTI: You will, of course, exercise the greatest precaution. No one is to trace this back to us.
MONTFLEURY: I understand. I'll get right on it.
PRINCE DE CONTI: Finish your brandy. There's no rush.
Montfleury drinks.
PRINCE DE CONTI (CONT'D): Montfleury, what do you expect to come of all this?
The question takes him by surprise.
MONTFLEURY: In a more enlightened time than ours, Moliere would be burned at the stake.
The stage play has one of my favorite endings:
ARMANDE: A priest will see me right after he's buried.
LA GRANGE: Good.
ARMANDE: Do you think it could be true?
LA GRANGE: The genius of Pascal's Wager is that it covers all bets.
ARMANDE: He was tormented by the possibility, wasn't he?
LA GRANGE: Perhaps. He was a hard man to know very well. I loved him but I never really understood him.
ARMANDE: "All it takes is a ticket to my play to know me."
LA GRANGE: "Plays don't write themselves."
(A beat.)
ARMANDE: I'm going to revive "Tartuffe."
LA GRANGE: Really?
ARMANDE: You under-studied Orgon. If we get right to work, we could have it up in a week. Jean wouldn't want the theater to go dark.
LA GRANGE: No, he wouldn't. "Busy, busy."
ARMANDE: Then you'll do it?
LA GRANGE: I have no choice — Pascal's Wager, you know? I'll let you have a moment alone . . .
ARMANDE: No — I've had quite enough time alone.
(They exit.)
(LIGHTS INTENSIFY on the casket.)
(Then LIGHTS BEGIN SLOW FADE as we hear:)
LA GRANGE (V.O.): End
In darkness, then: what clarity we win
Will rise between the darkness we see now
And the certain night that gets us anyhow.
End in darkness, then . . .
(LIGHTS continue to FADE: until SUDDENLY: A SHOCKING CHANGE OF FOCUS:)
(LIGHTS UP on MOLIERE, as he rises up out of the casket.)
28/ epilogue
MOLIERE: Shed no tears! You rot in one grave as another;
If you don't believe that, don't ever have a mother.
The luck that gets us all got me—
Though I'm better off than most, you must agree.
Consider this: though I am dust, you're glad to pay
Right through the nose to see my plays!
Without me, Montfleury's just a name;
Because of me, he has a kind of fame.
The Archbishop of Paris is no concern of yours
Except for me — I give him the notoriety he deserves.
In other words, why shed a tear for me?
My plays live on until eternity!
Oh, I know — in your age the time is getting short,
Everywhere there's war, famine, a great environmental wart.
Yet you insist your own age is unique:
"Never has civilization reached such a peak!"
But I question this wisdom found on TV and in "Forbes,"
Though maybe that's presumptuous, coming from a corpse.
Still, I don't see our times as different, I confess,
Since in your age, as in mine, it's all a mess.
Though you've reached the moon, discovered strange galactic gasses,
Three hundred years later, the world's still full of asses!
(LA GRANGE enters.)
LA GRANGE: So we hope we've moved you and given you a little fun; In truth,—
MOLIERE & LA GRANGE: — there's not a damn thing new beneath the sun.
(MUSIC FANFARE AND CURTAIN CALL: THE PLAY IS OVER.)
This monologue got published in the annual Best Monologues anthology.
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