March 15, 2007
Moliere's best translator now gives us a sparklingly speakable version of one of the only comedies by Moliere's great contemporary Corneille. An aging man who has searched years for his alienated son goes to a magician who promises to show him what the young man has been up to. Father and mage enter the latter's cave, a curtain parts, and before their eyes a romantic comedy unfolds. Posing as an exile, the son is serving as go-between for a vainglorious self-styled warrior-prince and an heiress whose father prefers her other suitor. The lady has fallen for the poseur, who much prefers her pretty maidservant. The prodigal son intends to land both the lady--or, more important, her fortune--and the maid. His schemes fail, seemingly tragically, but then, in the last act, all is revealed to be . . . a play! Shakespeare's " Tempest" may be the only famous English analogue to this play, and then only in that it and the Corneille are ultimately celebrations of theater itself.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)