MOLIERE FOR MODERNS
JN an article in the BBC’s Radio Times, J. C. Trewin, the dramatic critic, described Miles Malleson’s The Prodigious Snob (an adaptation of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme), as "Moliére alive and ‘kicking." This latest essay in Moliére for moderns was broadcast in the BBC World Theatre series, and a transcription of it will be heard from 4YC at 7.30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 22, and from 1YC at 9.0 p.m. on Thursday, September 23. The radio version was adapted by Felix Felton from Miles Malleson’s stage production
at the Bristol Old Vic, with Malleson himself as Monsieur Jourdain and the Bristol Old Vic Company taking part. Miles Malleson, actor and. dramatist, first turned his revitalising pen to Moliére some three years ago with The Miser, freely adapted from L’Avare. "It excited audiences," wrote Trewin, "because Malleson, working in the spirit rather than the letter, had rescued Moliére from the starch of so many English versions, and offered a text that was supple, speakable -and_ wholly divorced from translator’s jargon." Soon afterward, L’Avare was followed by Tartuffe, and that in turn by Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Of Miles Malleson’s acting of Jourdain in the stage version Trewin wrote: "I remember him looking in the part like a happy codfish with blood-pressure . . . he projected a fellow of panting, pop-eyed splendour, re-solved-come what may-to excel in music, fencing, philosophy, and all the arts that make a gentleman." Not only has Malleson swept away the stilted English of earlier translators ‘of Moliére in The Prodigious Snob; he has also provided a text that is supremely actable. The famous passage in which Monsieur Jourdain discovers that he has been speaking prose all his life is a good example of Malleson’s method. An 18th Century translation records it thus: "On my conscience, I have spoken prose above these forty years, without knowing anything of the matter; and I have all the obligations in the world to you, for informing me of this." Malleson’s text runs: "Well well, well, to think I’ve been talking prose all my life and never knew it! Really, I’m very much obliged to you -I do feel I’ve learnt something this morning."
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 791, 17 September 1954, Page 15
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361MOLIERE FOR MODERNS New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 791, 17 September 1954, Page 15
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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