Director’s Words

Several years ago, we received a grant from the Beech Street Foundation that allowed us to commission five adaptations of lesser-known plays. These would be plays by great writers that are not performed often enough, or that truly need a new translation for revival in the 21st century.  Pierre Corneille’s play The Liar was the first of these commissions, and it embodies everything this project is about: to bring to light a play that should be in a classical theatre’s repertory.

I fell in love with The Liar when we read it for our ReDiscovery series. It was a revelation to me, because I know Corneille from his famous tragedies, but I didn’t know that he was such a great comic writer.  It was a tremendously funny and clever play, and in a way also a very touching play. It’s the story of an amazing character who lies all the time. He’s an incredible storyteller in the spur of the moment. So we read it for ReDiscovery and it made for an enchanting evening.

But as well as that first reading went, it was also quite clear that a new translation and adaptation would serve the play better. I knew David Ives’ work from many productions, including his adaptation of Mark Twain’s Is He Dead? that ran on Broadway in 2007. David had tuned that newly rediscovered comedy, and I thought he could transform this wonderful farce as well. David is brilliant linguistically, a masterful writer of puns and rhymes and situations, so we were delighted when he agreed to translate and adapt The Liar. And he’s done just an amazing job. He’s kept the spirit of Corneille, including keeping it in rhymed verse. I think it’s a great rediscovery of the play for American audiences. We just started rehearsal, and I’m already having a wonderful time.

It’s great to have David working on this script with us, and I welcome him every day that he’s involved in the rehearsal process. Since I work mainly in classical theatre, I usually deal with dead playwrights. When I make adjustments to a play by Shakespeare—adding or cutting text or rewriting a line—I’m “asking” him, “Is that a good idea for your play?” I hope that if he were here now, he would say yes. So having a playwright that I can talk on the telephone with or eat lunch with (and not have to channel) is pleasant.