Two versions of Marivaux's
Le Petit Maître Corrigé (1734). The first a faithful translation (
The Beau's Lesson) and the second a modern adaptation (
School for Bros).
"A forgotten gem... one of the Marivaux plays that have stood the test of time." (
Financial Times)
"Ranks with the other, better known works of the master of games of love and chance... [but] something more serious seems to be going on in this play, whose austerity of plot and denseness of dialogue suggest the author's desire to touch a deep, hard core." (Le Monde)
This charming psychological comedy was produced by the Comédie Française in 2017 after nearly 300 years of neglect -- to such acclaim that the run was extended into 2018, a film of it made and the play remounted in the 2023 season.
Now English-speaking readers can appreciate this new-found classic for themselves, both in a faithful yet supple translation that captures all of Marivaux's characteristic nuance, charm and playfulness, and in a modern adaptation that puts affluent California tech culture to a satirical test.
“Excellent new translation. . . . Weber appreciates the playful qualities of the source material, especially the fast tonal and tactical shifts employed by the characters. . . . The linguistic register offers a nice balance of historical and contemporary. Diction suggests historical distance, but vocabulary is not archaic. . . . Weber has a good ear for this temporal back-and-forth. . . . Character voice is a definite strength of this translation. . . . With its fortuitous turns of phrase, elegance of style, and clarity of character voices, Tom Weber's translation is a welcome addition to the canon of Marivaux plays in English.” (The Mercurian, The Theatre Translation Review)
The plays of Pierre de Marivaux (1688-1763) have become, after Molière's, the most performed comedies on the French stage. Marivaux also wrote, though left unfinished, two ground-breaking novels.
The author of this translation, The Beau's Lesson, is Tom Weber, is a playwright and professional translator whose translations have been filmed in Hollywood and produced on stages in the U.S. and France. The modern comedy, School for Bros, is a joint creation with Benno Nelson, a Chicago playwright, director, comic and dramaturg.