Playing Moliere was first performed at the Space Theatre of the Adelaide Festival Centre, South Australia in 1984.
The play, about 5 women in a Nazi detention centre at the very end of World War II who, in order to survive, decide to put on a a production of what they remember of Moliere’s play La Malade Imaginaire. During the course of the play they reveal their 'true' natures - the religious bigot - the one prepared to become the commandants mistress in order to get food for the others, and so on.
The play was directed by John Noble with Bill Guest supervising the environmental construction .
Cathryn Fisher, Cat Lawrence, Anna Michael, Anna Pike, Sue Ryder and Emma Salter played the five detained women and the female guard.
PLAYING MOLIERE
by Gary Langford
To mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen labour camp in which over 50,000 people died, mainly from typhoid Light Theatre Company made a short video production to honour those who died and those who survived
In this online version Maggie Shevlin plays Eva and Vicky Blades, Claudette - watch the video here:
The play is as prescient and perhaps more so now than it was 40 years ago and Light Theatre Company is considering a new in-the-round production.
This video complements Csilla Toldy’s video poem Here I Stand, which was commissioned by the Northern Ireland Executive as the Public Artwork to commemorate the liberation of the camps.
