Lully | The Forced Marriage

Setting a subtle, overall rhythm that alternates between acceleration and repose, Molière and Lully compose a work where their mutual whimsy can run free.
This rhythm is what must animate the performers, as well as the transformative stage design—evoking a "theater city" as mobile as the sketches, as colorful as the characters and their costumes, and as whimsical as the plot itself.

Synopsis
Sganarelle, feeling his age, prepares to end his bachelorhood, hoping to find in the ravishing Dorimène a wife to his liking—that is to say, at his exclusive disposal—to handle all household duties without question, including, of course, procreation! However, his bride-to-be has other ideas. After she explains to the old man how she envisions her future life (…very freely…), a worried Sganarelle, alarmed by an ominous dream, seeks advice from those around him: a close but skeptical friend, grandiloquent philosophers, fortune tellers, and even a magician and his imps. When he finally decides to call off this dangerous union, the beauty’s father and brother, all too happy to be rid of an ungovernable daughter, force the fiancé to keep his promises with the threat of a beating!

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