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    The Bungler
    The Bungler
    The Bungler
    Audiobook2 hours

    The Bungler

    Written by Molière

    Narrated by Richard Easton and Full Cast

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In 17th Century Sicily, a clever valet named Mascarille tries to help his boss Lélie win the girl of his dreams -- only to find that Lélie is a monumental dunce who ruins every one of his intricate schemes. Undaunted, Mascarille invents progressively wilder plots, only to see his best-laid plans go very awry in Molière's The Bungler. Translated by Richard Wilbur.

    An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring:

    • Richard Easton as Mascarille
    • Adam Godley as Lelie
    • Alan Mandell as Trufaldin
    • Dakin Matthews as Ergaste
    • Christopher Neame as Pandolphe
    • Paula Jane Newman as Celie
    • Darren Richardson as Andres
    • John Sloan as Léandre
    • Norman Snow as Anselme
    • Kate Steele as Hippolyte.

    This recording contains an interview with Mechele Leon, Associate Professor of Classical and Contemporary French Theatre at the University of Kansas.

    Directed by Dakin Matthews. Recorded at The Invisible Studios, West Hollywood.

    ©2011 L.A. Theatre Works (P)2011 L.A. Theatre Works

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherL.A. Theatre Works
    Release dateMar 15, 2011
    ISBN9781580818056
    The Bungler
    Author

    Molière

    Molière was a French playwright, actor, and poet. Widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and universal literature, his extant works include comedies, farces, tragicomedies, comédie-ballets, and more.

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    Reviews for The Bungler

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Listened to as part of The Molière Collection, a digital audiobook by L.A. Theater Works of performances of 6 plays using Richard Wilbur's translations.This first play in the collection was one unfamiliar to me - not as hilarious as Moliére's best but still quite funny. The plot is reminiscent of some of Shakespeare's comedies (The Comedy of Errors for example).
    • 4/5
      My excitement at seeing a newly published Richard Wilbur translation of a Moliere play I hadn't heard of was tempered slightly by the worry it was just a different title for a play I had already read. (This recently happened to me with Bulgakov's A Dead Man's Memoir, and years ago I was excited to read Camus' The Outsider -- only to figure out pretty quickly it was just a different translation of The Stranger.)

      According to the introductory notes, this was Moliere's first major play and the first play in verse. It is a Commedia Dell Arte that tells a stock farce plot of a bungling young man, Lelie, and his resourceful valet as they attempt to get a woman, currently held as a slave and also pursued by another young man. Every time the valet has a new scheme it gets thwarted by Lelie's bungling. It is a testament to the play that I found myself laughing just as hard the twelfth or so time the formula of valet devises a seemingly fool-proof plan to get the girl, and the fool ruins it.

      Nowhere near Moliere's later plays in depth, complexity, psychological insight and development, plot etc. But Wilbur's verse translation is as witty and enjoyable as the best of Moliere -- as I suspect the original French is as well.