March 2013: HATER

Is the 21st century a classic farce? Or is it just high fashion high school? Humboldt State University Department of Theatre, Film and Dance presents the West Coast premiere of Hater, Samuel Buggeln's bold new translation of Moliere’s comedy The Misanthrope, for two weekends: Thursdays through Saturdays,  February 23 to March 2, March 7 to 9 at 7:30 p.m., with a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. on March 10 in the Gist Hall Theatre on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets: $10/$8, with limited number of free seats to HSU students at each performance, from the HSU Box Office (826-3928) or at the door.  Directed by Michael Fields.

Media: Humboldt State Now, Tri-City Weekly, featured event HSU Calendar, Arcata Eye, Stage Matters

HATER Translator on HSU Campus During West Coast Premiere

This 21st century version of Moliere's comedy The Misanthrope was translated by New York director Samuel Buggeln, who will be on the HSU campus for two public events this weekend.

 On Friday, March 8 he will participate in a "talkback" after the play in Gist Hall Theatre.

 On Saturday from 3 p.m. to 5, he will be on hand in the Studio Theatre to talk and answer questions. In addition, he will be the honored guest for a pot-luck dinner with members of the production, at 5.

Here's more on Buggeln (including how to say his name when you meet him.)  Hater concludes its HSU run and West Coast premiere Thursday-Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Gist Hall Theatre.

HATER on Art Waves

Members of the HSU Theatre, Film & Dance production of HATER will be interviewed on the KHSU radio program Art Waves with Wendy Butler on Tuesday Feb. 26 at 1:30 p.m.

Alex (played by Charlie Heinberg) is brilliant, admired and close to the center of a nation’s power. But he has two problems. The first is that in a world of flattery-to-your-face and snark behind your back, he says exactly what he thinks. About everything-- and everybody. All the time. To everyone. Somehow this offends people.

His second problem is Celine (played by Johani Guerrero). She is young and beautiful, an acid-tongued gossip and outrageous flirt. She says what everyone wants to hear, and so is always the center of attention. She should be exactly what Alex despises. Nevertheless, Alex is hopelessly in love with her. And sometimes, she seems to be in love with him. But then...

Those who know the classic Moliere comedy The Misanthrope may be amazed at how contemporary it seems in this 21st century translation called Hater. Those who aren’t familiar with it might wonder how hundreds of years ago and an ocean away, Moliere was so tuned in to today.

This translation by New York-based director Samuel Buggeln has been controversial, but widely praised. “Hater is not your grandmother's Molière,” said Jody Enders, professor of French and theatre at University of Southern California Santa Barbara. “It is Molière for the twenty-first century... In [Buggeln’s] hands Le Misanthrope has never been more alive, more fun, more contemporary, more eternal.”

 But for all the contemporary banter (and frequent strong language), Hater follows the Moliere play exactly. Alcestus is now Alex, Celimene is now Celine, but the course of their romance is the same. So are the other characters, their alliances and enmities in the court intrigue—which, as it turns out, is a lot like high school, or the workplace.

“It’s fast and furious, physical and funny,” said director Michael Fields. “But it’s also a love story.” The lovers are star-crossed, not in their circumstances, but in their characters. “Alex is an iconoclast, but Celine is a social animal—she says she can’t stand not being in a group.” Yet Alex is overwhelmed by Celine’s beauty and charm—he knows his attraction is irrational. “Celine is attracted to Alex because he’s an iconoclast. He tells the truth and it’s so funny—because at first it sounds like gossip, but he actually means it.”

Fields uses music and staging to make connections to the contemporary world. Inspired by a Ralph Lauren extravaganza he saw in Versailles, the stage is a fashion show runway, with the audience seated around it. Outrageous clothes (not to mention the shoes!) and the actors’ poses accentuate the theme.

“These are young characters, and these are obsessions that are as much a part of being young today as they were in Moliere’s time.”

HATER: Our Cast

Alex: Charlie Heinberg
 Phil:  Brodie Storey
 Celine:- Johani Guerrero
 Ron: Mark Teeter
 Cashin: Galen Poulton
 Clinton: Luke Tooker
 Liane: Michelle Purnell
Zinna: Andreina Loaiza
Woody: Adrienne Ralsten
Basque: Derek Burns

Derek Burns and Adrienne Ralsten in rehearsal

HATER: Our Production

 Director: Michael Fields
Producer: Margaret Kelso
Assistant Director: Shea King
Costume/Scenic Design: Rae Robison
Lighting/Sound Design: Telfer Reynolds
Hair and Makeup Design: Kimberly Haines
Stage Manager: Jessica Loura Hardwick
Assistant Stage Manager: Kai Thomas
Asst. Costume Design: Marissa Menezes
Costume Shop Coordinator: Catherine Brown
Asst. Lighting Design: Juan Carlos Contreras
Asst. Sound Design: Lynnie Horrigan
Lighting Design Advisor: James McHugh
Sound Design Advisor: Glen Nagy
Technical Director: Jayson Mohatt
Props Master: Kelsey Hardwick
Administrative Support: Debra Ryerson, Lorraine Dillon
Photography: Kellie Brown
Publicity/blog copy & design: Bill Kowinski

Stage Manager at Work: Jessica Hardwick

Technical Crew: Bethany Currier, Erica Fromdahl, Victoria Goddard.

HATER: the Director

Michael Fields is Producing Artistic Director of the Dell'Arte Company and Director of the California Summer School of the Arts.  He has directed and acted in Moliere plays and adaptations, including a starring role in the Dell'Arte production of Tartuffe.  He is currently teaching an advanced acting class at Humboldt State that is preparing a show on Alexander von Humboldt for next fall, part of the HSU centennial.  The following is an edited interview about the HSU Theatre, Film & Dance Department production of Hater.

What’s Hater about?

 “It’s about a guy—Alex in this translation-- who can’t stand not being able to tell the truth, especially socially and to authority. So eventually he has to make a choice between living in this particular world, or dropping out.

But it’s also a love story. He’s in love with Celine, but it doesn’t fit into the construct he has for himself. So it’s a contradiction in his life—he can’t get over it and he can’t abide it. A tough place to be in.

 Alex is one of those guys—and I’ve met several—who has certain absolutes. Phil, his best friend in the play, keeps trying to reason with him but he’s such an iconoclast that he can’t compromise. But of course the penalties you pay in this world for that can be high. When you have high ideals and try to live by them, the world can become a difficult place.

 Celine is an experienced woman—she’s been married once—but she’s still only 20. I don’t think she comes from great wealth, so her drive is to stay in with the royal court. She’s a social animal, she’s attracted to Alex because he’s an iconoclast. He tells the truth and it’s so funny, because at first it sounds like gossip but he actually means it. She’s keeping four or five guys in the air—I think they all want it but I don’t think any of them gets it. She’s not sleeping around, just promising things that don’t get delivered.”

 Is Moliere’s The Misanthrope autobiographical?

“Some people think so. I don’t think Alex is necessarily him, but he did marry a younger woman and she did give him room to doubt her faithfulness on all kinds of levels. You do see that situation appear in many of his plays.”

 What attracted you to this translation?

 I met Samuel Buggeln in New York. We had a cup of coffee, he’s a really great guy. He speaks fluent French, and his translation is absolutely faithful to the original in its structure. The difference is that he updates the language, and he doesn’t rhyme it, as Moliere does.

 The language—which has a lot of colloquial four letter words—makes this accessible to contemporary audiences, especially young audiences. And that’s a good audience for it because this is a play about youth, about fashion and pretense, gossip and position. We use a lot of music to show how contemporary it really is.”

 The New York Times reviewer called the original production’s style “Bling Baroque.” How are you approaching it?

 Bling Baroque! Elements of baroque contrasted with very contemporary stuff. It’s staged as a fashion show.  The stage is like a fashion show runway, and the audience will be pretty much all around it. They’ll be close to the action. I saw a Ralph Lauren fashion show in Versailles—it was really extraordinary as an inspiration.

 At the same time, we’re not making it about the set. It’s about the actors. Moliere wrote for actors and this is an actors’ piece. It should be fast and furious, physical and funny. But there are some real consequences in the final act, so the actors have to take the characters seriously. Some of the humor comes from taking them seriously—it’s the human comedy. That’s what Moliere nailed. He got to the heart of that kind of comedy. The difficulty of acting it is that the characters aren’t cutouts—the actors have to feel it.

 I think students will really like it, really enjoy the speed and the spectacle of it. It has an appeal and a connection to this audience. But anybody who expects the traditional Moliere will be horribly disappointed, and maybe terribly offended.”

HATER: The Translator

 Samuel Buggeln (who says his name is pronounced “like bug-ellen. It rhymes with melon. Or felon”) founded Vancouver’s Liquid Theatre, a company devoted to site-specific work. He is the veteran artistic associate for the Obie-winning New Ohio Theatre Company, where he directed the first production of Hater.

 Buggeln is also New York City-based Artistic Associate for Portland Stage, a regional theatre in Maine. He has cast and directed many of their recent shows. He works on new plays in New York at the Lark Development Center. He developed and directed Bedbugs!!!, an 80s sci-fi musical, which won 5 jury awards from the New York Musical Theatre Festival on its way to Off-Broadway.

 He also developed and directed Go-Go Kitty, GO! which received the Best Play FringeFirst Award among 200 shows at the FringeNYC festival.


 As translator, Buggeln notes that Hater is the first version of Moliere’s The Misanthrope to be done in free verse rather than rhymed. While Moliere’s rhymed lines sound colloquial in French, the effect is not at all the same in English, he says. “Rhymes are vastly harder to find in English than in French, for lots of technical reasons. This forces the translator into all kinds of textual inaccuracies, stilted locutions, and poorly landed jokes. And once s/he has gone to all that trouble, the effect of rhyming couplets in English is completely unlike their effect in French, so there goes any feeling of equivalency anyway.”

 But he didn’t drop the idea of rhyming (and there are a few in his text) as a matter of principle or to make a point. “I didn't land on my approach by thinking through these arguments, of course. I found my way here by experimentation, simply looking for a way to transmit in English what was most exciting to me about the play in French.”

 Though this approach is somewhat controversial, other translators and academics have supported his version. “Samuel Buggeln's living and lively translation breathes new life into those old alexandrines,” according to Jody Enders, a professor who translates medieval French farce. “In his hands Le Misanthrope has never been more alive, more fun, more contemporary, more eternal.”

 “Buggeln's bold new translation of Le Misanthrope offers a fresh approach that crackles with a contemporary sensibility while remaining true to the original source,” commented professor Jordan Schildcrout. “Without gimmicks or glibness, Hater makes Molière's sharp and witty satire available to today's audiences with the most playable and pertinent translation I've had the pleasure of hearing in the theatre.”

Website for HATER
Samuel Buggeln's website

HATER: The Playwright

Jean-Baptise Poquelin was born in 1622 to a prominent Parisian family. His father was the King’s upholsterer. As a young man he set up a theatrical troupe that performed in an abandoned tennis court. After a couple of years the troupe went bankrupt, and Jean-Baptise, unable to pay its debts, was sent to prison. When his father paid what he owed and got him out, he disappeared forever.

 In fact he became an actor touring the French provinces, under the stage name of Moliere.

 As Moliere, he acted in French provincial towns for the next 13 years. While based in Lyon, he was fascinated by companies from Italy performing Commedia dell’Arte.

 He returned to Paris in 1658, where court theatre was strictly formal and based on classical models. But he had the good fortune to arrive early in the reign of a new King who liked to laugh. With the patronage of the Duke of Orleans, Moliere brought his new company to perform before the king. The classical tragedy performed first was received politely. But the farce that Moliere staged next was the hit of the evening.

 Thanks in part to the funnybone of King Louis XIV, Moliere survived and triumphed with his comedies, though they were always controversial for their satirical attacks on Parisian pretensions. His mocked the hypocrisy of marriage in The School for Husbands and The School for Wives. He took on clerical and upper class hypocrisy in Tartuffe (which was banned for a time) and the pretensions of medicine in The Doctor Despite Himself. The amoral morass of the wealthy upper class was his target in The Miser.

 During his 14 years in Paris, Moliere often acted in his own plays. In 1673, he starred in the Imaginary Invalid about a hypochondriac, and performed his famous coughing fits. But this time they were real. After coughing up blood on stage, he finished the performance, but died later that night. He was a victim of pulmonary tuberculosis, perhaps contracted when he was imprisoned as a young man. He was 51.

 Moliere wrote and produced The Misanthrope in 1666. Widely considered his best play, this first production was a commercial failure. It is known as a departure from farces (and Commedia dell’Arte) that depend on stock characters and action. The story progresses by the revelation of character and off-stage events rather than disguises and mistaken identities, comic coincidences and confrontations, and other conventions.

 “Misanthrope”—from the Greek words meaning “one who hates mankind”—was a fairly new word in Moliere’s time (its use dates from 1650.) In Moliere’s play, Alceste is cursed by the inability to say anything other than what he actually thinks and feels. Does this make him a fool or a hero?  French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau felt he was a hero, and complained that he was always played as a fool.

 Should Alceste be admired for his honesty and perceptiveness? Or should he be mocked for being unrealistic, narcissistic and impractical? That the play offers evidence for both points of view is perhaps one reason it has endured.

HATER: in context

Both as participants and audience, HSU students have the opportunity to experience this contemporary take on a classic 17th century comedy. It is part of the variety and balance that the Department of Theatre, Film & Dance seeks to achieve in its yearly schedule. Prior productions this year were a contemporary issues play (8) and an ancient East Asian classic (Shakuntala.) A contemporary American drama (Proof) rounds out the season later this spring, in addition to the annual dance concert and the annual film festival.