Patrick Marber's rewriting of Moliere follows the pattern of his reworking of Strindberg in After Miss Julie, performed in sizzling fashion by Kelly Reilly a couple of years ago at the Donmar. Marber is a great talent, though his ambitious plays don't always quite come off. I feel that his Don Juan falls between two stools. It's neither a simple adaptation of Moliere's play in modern dress, nor a complete reinvention, but a bit of both. Personally I feel Marber might have done better to put even greater distance between Moliere and himself. It isn't one of Moliere's greatest plays, and other versions of the Don Juan story are more familiar to us. Marber's dialogue swings between sharp and witty exchanges that are totally of today, and lengthy set-piece speeches with an oratorical flourish that belong more in the 17th century. He keeps the statue who leads the unrepentant Don Juan to his death, but changes its meaning. Instead of the graveside statue of the Commander, killed by Don Juan, it's a statue of Charles II in Soho. Don Juan and his sidekick Stan see it come to life after smoking a spliff. That's a brilliant theatrical idea, but somehow the moral retribution which the statue represents is missing. The damage that Don Juan does to others comes across very clearly, but the damage he does to himself isn't explored enough.
Rhys Ifans (last seen at the Donmar in Accidental Death of An Anarchist) as Don Juan is wonderful -- a leering, priapic aristocrat gone to the dogs, obsessed by drugs and sex, gloriously funny but always in complete control. Stephen Wight as Stan (in the original it's Sganarelle, the part that Moliere played himself) is just as good. Essentially this is a two-hander, with Stan playing the other half of Don Juan's divided self. The other roles are all incidental. Overall, despite the excellent performances and Michael Grandage's directing, I left the theatre with a slight sense of let-down.
Sometimes the deep seriousness of Moliere's plays goes missing in modern British adaptations, which treat his comedies as farces. I would never accuse Marber of lacking seriousness, but there's something that doesn't quite click for me in his version of the Don Juan story.
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