The Doctor in Spite of Himself:

The Doctor in Spite of Himself is a play that I had previously studied in France like many of Molière’s plays. I thought that it was ironic for me to go see the play for the first time in theatre in the United States. I was really looking forward to hear how the actors would pronounce the characters’ French names, which are rather exotic even for me. I think that because I had previously studied Molière’s work in class, I was expecting this play to be performed in a much more traditional style. I was a little disconcerted at first when seeing the actors performing a more modern version than what I had in mind. I ended up liking what Arne Zaslove has done with the play. In my opinion, modernizing it a little makes it easier to relate to the characters. However, mostly I think due to language barrier, I found the play really hard to follow which made it less enjoyable for me.
When it comes to acting, I thought that, overall, all the actors did a great job playing their characters. None of them ever looked at specific members of the audience while performing. I liked the way they used hand gestures or lowering their voice to address the audience. I particularly liked the acting skills of the actors playing Géronte, Lucinde and Léandre. I thought that they had the best elocution compared to other actors; they were speaking in a loud and clear way, articulating each word which made it easier for me to understand. To me the other actors’ enunciations were not as good. For instance, I thought that the actor playing Sganarelle did not do such a good job. It seemed like he was trying to be loud but ended up yelling most of the time instead, which I found tiring both for me and for him. This also made it harder to distinguish the different emotions he was playing. Furthermore, I did not like Lucas and Valère characters during the play. I