Le Petit-Maître corrigé

Clément Hervieu-Léger revives a Marivaux play that hasn’t been seen at the Comédie-Française since its premiere in 1734. The story is that of a young Parisian. His parents have found a good match for him in a count’s daughter. But when he goes to visit her, the beautiful boy – whose Parisian codes are a thousand miles from the rules of decorum in his fiancée’s home – cannot open his heart to his lovely intended. Stung, the latter decides to punish his arrogance while a former lover arrives to prevent the marriage. Between the alliance of master and manservant, and the complicity of mistress and maid, this romantic intrigue runs wild with light-hearted conspiracies and feverish emotions.
Known for the sharpness of his stagings of plays from the Repertoire, to which he is very attached, the pensionnaire Clément Hervieu-Léger, most recently directed the Troupe in The Misanthrope, which has been revived this season. With Le Petit-Maître Corrigé (The Fop Reformed), he makes the 18th century resonate with 2016, all the more so in that the language in this work is “simpler than in other Marivaux plays, while still as refined, precise and humorous”. His staging reveals the timelessness of this theatre, which “speaks to us of ourselves, intimately”.