Buy Now Button

The Miser


By Molière
Directed by Jeannie Woods

Dates: October 14 - 17, 2009
Place: Hainline Theatre
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Price: Public $14.00; Senior/WIU Student: $12.00
Ticket Contact: Hainline Box Office 309.298.2900 (NOON to 5:00 PM)

A coughing sexagenarian whose every thought, word, and action is determined by greed, Harpagon is one of Molière's most notorious characters. For more than three centuries, audiences have been charmed by the skinflint's obsessive scrimping and disturbed by the consequences of his avarice. Harpagon's frenzied antics give The Miser its comic momentum, but the character also casts a dark shadow on the play. His financial paranoia is as unsettling as it is entertaining.

The Miser's plot, involving a rich money-lender called Harpagon, whose feisty children long to escape from his penny-pinching household and marry their respective lovers, is a comedy of manners to which the 17th-century French upper classes presumably objected. It is less savage, however, and somewhat less realistic than Molière's earlier play, Tartuffe, which attracted a storm of criticism on its first performance.

For more information:

Call the Department of Theatre and Dance 309.298.1543