February 23 – April 1, 2018
(No show Saturday, March 10th)
Extended! Friday April 6th, Sunday April 8th, Friday April 13th, Saturday April 14th, and Sunday April 15th!
By Molière, translated by Frédérique Michel and Charles Duncombe.
In Molière’s comic masterpiece Arnolphe, a rich merchant, is under the delusion that he can create the perfect marriage for himself by creating the perfect wife. He raises a young orphan, Agnes, from infancy, determined to keep her ignorant of everything except what he teaches her. As the play begins, he is about to marry her at last, or so he thinks, until the young woman skillfully turns the tables on him. In this award-winning translation by Frédérique Michel and Charles Duncombe City Garage remounts its acclaimed 2009 production with a contemporary twist that speaks to the issues of patriarchy, gender, and power in the “Time’s Up” headlines of today.
“Delightful…almost dance-like…the humor is nonstop…Roberts’s performance touches our hearts.”
— David MacDowell Blue, Night Tinted Glasses
TOP TEN – Recommended!
“Director Frederique Michel relies on an elegant new translation she’s written in collaboration with producer and designer Charles Duncombe, with a staging that emphasizes the artificiality of Moliere’s comedy with balletic, stylized movement. The result is crowd-pleasing and consistently funny. As Arnolphe, Roberts captures the quintessence of male arrogance, egotism and insensitivity, which makes his growing desperation hilarious and leaves us longing to see him get his comeuppance. Pida brings the asset of real youth (she’s a high school senior) to the ingénue role of Agnes….Jaime Arze and David E. Frank score as a pair of dimwitted servants, and Troy Dunn is smoothly insinuating as Arnolphe’s friend, Chrysalde. The handsome set departs from the play’s 17th century time period; Duncombe chooses instead to set the action in “a time when such things happen,” using a modernistic flavor. Josephine Poinset provides the clever and stylish costumes.”
— Stage Raw
WEEKEND PICK! – LA TIMES
“This comedy, considered by many to be Moliere’s greatest, concerns a controlling guardian who has carefully cloistered his decades-younger ward in the hope of transforming her into the “perfect” (and perfectly ignorant) wife who will never stray. Controversial in its day, the premise seems abhorrently timely now. Dedicated avant-gardists Frédérique Michel and Charles Duncombe have devoted their theatrical careers to defiantly alternative theater. Their well-regarded translation of “Wives,” first produced at their theater in 2009, brings an invigoratingly revisionist perspective to Moliére’s classic.”
— Los Angeles Times
“The central character in Molière’s comedy, newly translated by Frederique Michel and Charles Duncombe, could be and often is a punching bag. But not here…. The play emerges less as a clown show and more as a wistful, almost elegiac rumination on aging and folly.”
“Go!” — LA Weekly
“This new translation/adaptation of Moliere by director Frederique Michel and Charles A. Duncombe is clever, colloquial, and far more actable than most recent versions.”
— Backstage
Buy the Book!
This best-selling translation is available from Amazon.
Moliere’s The School for Wives: A New version in English by Charles A. Duncombe and Frederique Michel **CITY GARAGE BEST SELLER** This translation is being used in university courses.
Purchase the book from Amazon
This project is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the Santa Monica Arts Commission.
This project is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the Santa Monica Arts Commission.
