National Theatre Live’s screening of Martin Crimp’s reimagining of Moliére’s The Misanthrope is a bone-dry, witty and modern version of the original. Gender-flipped, with Alceste becoming Alice, it stars American actress Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy, Killing Eve) in her UK stage debut as a talented novelist with a penchant for telling it like she strongly believes it is. This is especially problematic in today’s landscape of “cancel culture” and documenting everything on social media – nothing is private, and not a single careless word goes unrecorded.
Oh leads a stellar cast of actors, with Paul Chahidi acting as her long-suffering best friend John, who tries his best to keep Alice out of trouble, and Tom Mison as Alice’s young and handsome love interest Stefan. Imogen Elliott is brilliant as young, influencer nepo-baby and wannabe-writer Esmée, who later gets the brash and cutting Alice cancelled when she doesn’t like what Alice has to say about her manuscript. Jemima Rooper’s Elaine comes in “all guns blazing” as Stefan’s aggrieved ex-wife. Rina Fatania (Indira), Abigail Cruttenden (Claire) and Freddie MacBruce (Allen with two “L”s) bring dynamic energy to the stage as Stefan’s entourage.
Crimp’s razor-sharp script, combined with Oh and the cast’s comedic timing makes sure we are not only entertained, but challenged at every turn. Precisely directed one-liners serve a dual purpose – to either punctuate serious issues being discussed, or to provide some much needed comic relief.
But what makes this 21st century retelling so great is that it also manages to touch on important and highly relevant themes to our current time period, while keeping true to the main spirit of Moliére’s work. After all, hypocrisy, a lack of empathy and “fakeness” are timeless.
As an example, Alice brings up the seemingly frivolous pursuit of the arts amidst times of political conflict and war, contrasting the superficiality of indulging in such things while others face the brutal reality of pulling their children out of the rubble. Elaine dismisses this outright: “I live for my kids and my music. I simply do not have time to live for the pain of others.”
While many issues are touched on – patriarchy, misogyny, feminine rage, political correctness, virality – none is explored in exhaustive detail, and that’s not really the point. The clearest proof of Moliére’s hypocrisy theme is in what Alice does: for all her bluster about everyone else’s fakeness, at the end of the day, she falls for Stefan, who embodies everything she supposedly despises.
By the end, the play reads like an “everybody sucks here” reddit story. As Alice laments, “Sometimes I dream of a clean, white space entirely disinfected of the human race.” Me too, Alice, me too.
NT Live: The Misanthrope is playing for a limited time at Luna Palace Cinemas.