With "The Misanthrope", the Landestheater Detmold brings Molière's biting social comedy to the stage in a modern production - pointed, sharp-tongued and surprisingly topical. Director Ekat Cordes relocates the action to the garish world of television and hits the nerve of our times.
Alceste has lost his heart to the young Célimène. She is not averse to him, but she also enjoys socializing, has many admirers and loves to flirt - especially on her TV show "Célimène uncensored", where she invites the local high society to talk about the latest gossip in front of an audience. Alceste, an investigative journalist, is a guest on her show to promote his new book, which exposes the hypocritical machinations of politics. Uncompromising and implacable, he refuses to make concessions to politeness and etiquette in any form - he insists on radical honesty. With passionate determination, he goes toe-to-toe with a hypocritical society, preaches absolute truth and deliberately puts himself in an outsider's position.
Molière has written a profound play about appearance and reality and a wonderfully grotesque character comedy, full of wit and punchlines. Ekat Cordes' production places the story in the colorful plastic world of television, in which not all that glitters is gold, and shows that the world may have changed since Molière's time, but the people have remained the same.
Premiere September 26, 2025
Further performances: October 4, 9, 10 and 18, November 16, 10, 17 and 18 December 2025, March 23 and 27, 2026
