Acting - the Learned Ladies

1. The major idea of the play was to make fun of the confidence that so called "learned" people have. The idea was developed by showing sheer chaos in Henriettas family. The chaos that is going on seems much because of Henriettas mother and how she tries to run her household as oppose to the Henriettas father. Philaminte, the mother, only feels this way because she is brainwashed by pretty much a con artist , Trissotin, who makes her feel enlightened by the poetry and science he teaches her. The idea is based off how not only how Philaminte but Armande, Hernrietta's older sister, and Belise, Henrietta's aunt, are completely fooled by their own confidence in this fake philosopher. I think that the confidence that was shown at the beginning of the play by these so called "learned" ladies changed into stubbornness which led to them looking stupid rather than smart. I think that Moliere's Philaminte changed throughout the play the most and is the prime example of how her learnedness and confidence changed to stubbornness and to some stupidity. When reviewing the play and looking at this deeper meaning within itself, you can take look at yourself and see some points in your life where you might have looked foolish because you didn't have reason with your opinion. It shows you that you need to sometime stop when others might see you as being stubborn and reason with the situation. In turn, you will become "learned" with these types of situations and know how to strategically maneuver through conflict with reason. In my opinion how this play was produced not only enlightened me about "reason" but also entertained me. The style the production seemed to portray was a comedy. The elements of the production definitely fit with the style. The costumes and tone of voices were very funny.

2. When analyzing the actors in the play and how they portrayed the characters, I feel that they all did a stupendous job. They were definitely able to keep my attention through the whole play and make me believe I was not actually there but watching how goofy stubborn people can be. Each actor was very consistent with their performance. I liked how each person was very loud as if each line they had was said with much passion. Througout the whole play I was very impressed and especially with how each actor worked with each other perfectly. My favorite duo was probably Henrietta's father Chrysale played by Maury Reed and Henrietta's uncle Ariste played by Asa Tims. I think the reason why it was so funny was because Asa played his part with more passion then anyone on the stage. He demonstrated this passion with the cane he would point in the air, or how he would look into the sky, as if he were talking to someone greater than him and showing no fear at all. Probably my least favorite actor was the Notary played by Cade Worley. The only reason I didn't feel that he was as good as everybody else