A detailed study of Molière as playwright, director and actor, and his life and career.

Preface; Acknowledgements; Chronology; 1. The career strategy of an actor turned playwright: 'de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace' Marie-Claude Canova-Green; 2. The material conditions of Molière's stage Jan Clarke; 3. The master and the mirror: Scaramouche and Molière Stephen Knapper; 4. Molière as satirist Larry F. Norman; 5. How (and why) not to take Molière too seriously Richard Parish; 6. L'Avare or Harpagon's masterclass in comedy Robert McBride; 7. Laughter and irony in Le Misanthrope Andrew Calder; 8. Comédies-ballets Charles Mazouer; 9. Le Bourgeois gentilhomme: Molière and music John S. Powell; 10. Medicine and entertainment in Le Malade imaginaire Julia Prest; 11. Molière and the teaching of Frenchness: Les Femmes savantes as a case study Ralph Albanese, Jr; 12. L'École des femmes: matrimony and the laws of chance Roxanne Lalande; 13. Molière nationalised: Tartuffe on the British stage from the Restoration to the present day Noël Peacock; 14. Landmark twentieth-century productions of Molière: a transatlantic perspective on Molière: mise en scène and its historiography Jim Carmody; 15. Dom Juan: the directors' play David Whitton; 16. 'Reculer pour mieux sauter': modern experimental theatre's debt to Molière David Bradby; Select bibliography.