The main plot proves the maxim that the only cure for a "love disease" is love itself as Lucinde and her clever and mischievous maid, Lisette, outwit Lucinde's possessive and miserly father, Sganarelle, who wants to keep his daughter and her dowry for himself.
The love-struck Lucinde feigns illness which stumps the famous doctors that Sganarelle consults, but which is easily diagnosed and cured by her lover Clitandre, disguised as a doctor whose remedies are words that speak to the heart. Clitandre prescribes a "mock wedding," with him as groom, but to Sganarelle's dismay, the ceremony is legitimate and Lucinde regains her health through marriage.
This somewhat flimsy love story provides the frame on which to hang Molière's satire of seventeenth-century doctors as he attacks their incompetence, their willingness to sacrifice the health of the patient for professional advantage, and their adherence to rules. As Macroton says, "Better to die according to the rules, than to escape [death] against the rules".
Much of the enjoyment of these characters comes from their theatricality and physicality. Inspired by the stock characters of commedia dell'arte and their lazzi (improvised bits of comic business), Molière reminds us, "in such a play, very much depends on performance." We can only surmise the improvisation added to the original show.
Molière's knowledge of commedia dell'arte was gained first-hand. In 1643, at the age of twenty-one, he founded L'Illustre-Théâtre in Paris and began a lifelong partnership with the Béjart family. This alliance even included marriage to Armande Béjart in 1662. Although her 1643 birth certificate registers her as the sister of co-founder Madeleine Béjart, Armande was probably her daughter. It is likely that her father was Madeleine's lover, the Count of Modène; some rumors, however, hint that it was actually Molière.
L'Illustre-Théâtre was not a success in Paris, and in 1645, the troupe began thirteen years of provincial touring--a period of intense apprenticeship for the young actors. It was during this time that the young Jean-Baptiste Poquelin adopted the name of Molière, supposedly as an affront to the aristocracy, the only ones to be recognized by just one name.
Molière then began his career as a playwright by composing farces to supplement the commedia dell'arte scenarios that were the troupe's standard fare. By 1658, the company, under the patronage of the king's brother, was ready to tackle Paris once again, and they soon achieved success with Molière's early farces and Les Précieuses Ridicules, Molière's first foray into a new style of comedy which mocked contemporary manners.
Thus began his extraordinary career as a playwright, and today, Molière is often cited as the greatest comic dramatist of all time. His plays satirize the affectations and mores of his contemporaries, and many of his insights still have resonance today as can be seen in the increasing number of professional productions of his plays. One of Molière's favorite targets for ridicule was the medical profession.
Molière's own experiences with doctors greatly influenced their portrayal in his plays. He had a chronic lung condition that was known to be fatal, and the remedies prescribed did not encourage his faith in medicine. In the year before Molière wrote L'Amour Médecin, several people who were close to him died: the actor Du Parc, his ten-month-old son, Louis, his friend La Mothe Le Vayer,and also Molière's younger sister, Marie-Madeleine. Béralde, in Le Malade Imaginaire (1673), speaks for Molière when he says, "Medicine is only for those who are fit enough to survive the treatment as well as the illness."
As the son of the king's upholsterer, Molière had always been in close proximity to the royal family, which often allowed him to observe their doctors. These and other famous Parisian physicians directly inspired the five incompetent doctors ridiculed in the play. Molière, with the help of his friend, Boileau, altered their actual names by choosing similar-sounding Latin words which translate to "killer of men" and "fanatical bleeder" among other disparaging appellations. Since the medical practices used at court often set trends throughout France, regardless of their effectiveness, Molière's ridicule of this deference to procedure rather than to medical success was potentially explosive.
Most doctors believed that the earth was made up of four elements--fire, air, water and earth-- which corresponded to four humors responsible for human health--blood, black bile, phlegm and yellow bile. Any illness was believed to be from either an excess or a lack of these elements. Treatments such as purgation by suppositories, laxatives and emetic wine, bleeding and enemas were prevalent at the time. Although Molière satirized the doctors and medical practices of his time, the severity of the tone he used is difficult to assess in retrospect.
During the fourth performance of Le Malade Imaginaire on February 17, 1673, Molière was seized with a fit of coughing. After the play, he retired to his apartment, where his friend Monsieur Baron tended to his needs. Even on his deathbed, he called for his wife and not for a doctor to ease his pain. Molière began coughing up blood, and while Baron went to find his wife, Armande, Molière died in the company of the two nuns to whom he had given lodging. According to legend, the nuns gave him the spiritual help he needed to declare himself a good Christian and to resign himself to God's will. The priest who had been summoned did not arrive until after Molière had passed away.
While the Church refused to bury actors on consecrated ground if they failed to make an amende honorable in the presence of a priest, Armande and Baron, with the help of Louis XIV, arranged a nighttime burial on consecrated ground with the archbishop. There is some confusion about exactly what happened at the funeral. The ceremony took place on consecrated ground but, later, it was suggested that Molière had been buried in an unconsecrated portion of Saint Joseph Cemetery. In the early nineteenth-century, to honor Molière's memory, the leaders of the French Revolution transferred his tomb to Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris where other famous dignitaries are laid to rest.
It is said that toward the end of his reign, Louis XIV asked Boileau who he thought had been the best writer of their time. Boileau declared that it had been Molière. "I was not of that opinion, but you understand these things better than I do," the king replied.
Susan Chandler Haedicke
Alexandra Nicole Tallen
DIRECTOR'S NOTES FOR L'AMOUR MEDECIN
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