City Garage Classic Weekend – Moliere’s “The Bourgeois Gentleman” on YouTube

Each show is free starting on Friday at 8:00pm until Wednesday at midnight, but we welcome donations. Please make your contribution on our Chuffed page and then head over to YouTube to enjoy the show!
City Garage continues its ongoing City Garage Classics series this weekend with a production from 2008, Moliere’s The Bourgeois Gentleman translated and adapted by Frederique Michel and Charles Duncombe.
Nominated for “Best Adaptation,” 2008 LA Weekly Theatre Awards
Nominated for “Best Adaptation” by the LA Weekly, and a “Critic’s Choice” in the Los Angeles Times, this sparkling new translation/adaptation of Moliere’s classic comedy le Bourgeois Gentilhomme was described by the LA Times as a “gracefully loopy soufflé” and an “unguarded hoot.” Wealthy and foolish Monsieur Jourdain is in love with the Countess Dorimène and aches to be what he is not—a member of the aristocracy. Determined to overcome his low birth with an education in high style, he unwittingly surrounds himself with charlatans and swindlers who gleefully take his money and prey on his innocence. Originally written by Moliere as a “comedy ballet” for Louis XIV, this new translation re-imagines the play for today’s audience, transporting us into an extravagant fantasy world of song, dance, and upper class nonsense with a French accent.
Here is what the critics had to say:
“With a generous soupcon of witty anarchy… this sleek City Garage take on Moliere’s deathless satire of nouveau riche pretensions and aristocratic machinations is nominally avante garde, but mainly an unguarded hoot….With many wicked analogies to modern mores, Michel and Duncombe slyly tailor our times into their tart adaptation, complete with anachronisms, nonstop postures, and purposely limp songs… everyone embraces the formalized mischief with élan.”
“Critic’s Choice,” Los Angeles Times
“Frederique Michel and Charles Duncombe’s fresh and bawdy translation-adaptation serves up a bouquet of comedic delights.”
“Go,” LA Weekly