by Molière

Adaptation by Timothy Mooney

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THE LEARNED LADIES
Copyright © 2002 by Timothy Mooney
All Rights Reserved

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 CAST OF CHARACTERS
Traditionally cast, this play requires 8 men and 5 women. Three of the male characters (Vadius,
L’Epine, and Julien) could be performed by women, and those same 3 characters could be
doubled, reducing the minimum cast to 5 men, 5 women and 1 male or female performer.

CHRYSALE: A bourgeois man in good standing.

PHILAMINTE: Chrysale’s wife.
ARMANDE: Elder daughter of Chrysale and Philaminte.
HENRIETTE: Younger daughter of Chrysale and Philaminte.
ARISTE: Brother of Chrysale.
BELISE: Sister of Chrysale.
CLITANDRE: In love with Henriette.
TRISSOTIN: A wit.
VADIUS: A learned man.
MARTINE: A kitchen servant.
L’EPINE: A lackey.
JULIEN: Vadius’ valet.
THE NOTARY: Hired to draw up the marriage pact.
 SETTING
Paris, in the home of Chrysale.

RUN TIME
90 minutes

NOTE
Throughout the play, we maintain the “French scenes” as originally created by Molière. These
scenes seem to break the flow of the action, as we stop the ongoing dialogue to list everyone
who appears in the coming scene. The action is always intended to be continuous, and the break
in the “scene” is intended to indicate the entrance or exit of characters from the previous scene
into the new one. We assume each director will use their own discretion over the precise
moment in which the particular character’s entrance is evident to the audience.
Also in the interest of keeping the action continuous, we have maintained (almost complete)
fidelity to iambic pentameter verse throughout, even when characters are only speaking for a
fragment of a line. Effectively used, this verse serves as the “engine” of the play, as the action
continues to drive forward without long pauses of “thinking time.” Occasionally you will notice
this as the “stair-stepping” effect that short lines create, as characters pick up and finish lines of
verse that other characters initiated. When this works, the characters transcend a rote recitation,
uncovering a fun conflict between chaos and order. However insanely these characters may fly
off their individual handles, they are still participating in a magical universe that lives in meter
and rhyme.
 PRODUCTION HISTORY
This adaptation of The Learned Ladies was first produced at the University of Central Arkansas,
October 23-31, 2008, under the direction of Kevin Brown. The cast featured:

Chrysale – Aaron Holt

Philaminte – Pammi Fabert
Armande – Jackie Rivera
Henriette – Erica Summers
Ariste – Brady Ness
Belise – Christa Whitlow
Clitandre – Jordy Neill
Trissotin – Andrew Bartholmey
Vadius – Kyle Smiley
Martine – Stefanie Johnson
L’Epine – Megumi Kabe
Julien – Hunter Thompson
The Notary – Cameron Backus

This version of The Learned Ladies has also been presented by Augustana College in Rock
Island, Illinois. A shortened variation of this same work was produced by Pomperaug High School
(Southbury, Connecticut) where it won the state finals “Halo Award” for Best Play, Valley View
Theatre (Jonesboro, Arkansas), Highland Park High School (St Paul, Minnesota) and Lake Ridge
Academy (Milan, Ohio).
 AUTHOR’S NOTE
Written nine years after the very successful School for Wives, The Learned Ladies serves as an
elegant opposing frame, capturing the opposite side of the original argument and a look at an
author who will not be tied to party dictates of his past positions.
The Molière of 1662 wrote a comedy that would gladly stand beside the grandest of Greek
tragedies, as nearly every decision made by the anti-hero Arnolphe blows up in his face; it seems
that the Gods, themselves, are punishing him for hubris. It was a neoclassical work of
unmistakable structure: playful, but with grand visions of the petty human laying plans while the
gods laugh. One cannot help but see 17th century feminists claiming him as their own, riding the
success of that play to amplify their advocacy of the enlightened woman.
Reading The Learned Ladies, one might imagine Molière did not always delight having his writing
cheered by fans with a particular agenda.
Molière was an equal opportunity satirist, and from his gallery of rogues, neither men nor women
escaped. Molière saw ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, hypocrisy, pride and self-aggrandizement
on all sides. No sex, no class, no age, no profession might ever be exempt from these follies, and
this time Molière manages to balance the scales.
Learned Ladies depicts a kind of feminism unhinged, so enamored with itself that it jumps the
rails, and loses track of the love, the joy, the shared respect that both the sexes might maintain
in harmony with the other. As much as Molière ridiculed chauvinism in School for Wives, he also
makes clear that Chrysale in Learned Ladies has failed by letting his wife ride roughshod over
the household. And that must have been a disappointment to those who expected more
enlightenment from the author of School for Wives.
Yet, Molière lived in the legal landscape they all shared; fathers were responsible for decisions of
the household, and Chrysale’s failing has less to do with his manliness, than his unwillingness to
speak what is so— the man his wife wants to marry to their daughter is a vacuous “climber,”
flattering his way to the top. Chrysale’s desire to maintain peace, allowing his wife to shout him
down, may be his failing as a man, but it is also the failure of a partner.
The Learned Ladies feels far less controlled, less momentous, less dictated by the Gods than its
predecessor. Rather than the weighty scales of hubris tracing every action, we sense that Molière
is simply presenting the people he sees, following them to their sometimes ridiculous logical
conclusions.
This Molière feels more capable of chasing his comic muse however far she might run, until he
has exhausted it of its laughter. One feels him taking his humor where he finds it, and dropping it
to pick up each subsequent outrage that carries us along. He was expressing the delight of a
more mature writer with perhaps less of an agenda, but a more playful muse.
 THE LEARNED LADIES – PRODUCTION SCRIPT 1

ACT I

SCENE 1
ARMANDE & HENRIETTE
ARMANDE
Oh! Sister! What?! Is it now in your head
To give up maidenhood that you might wed?
To toss off lofty singleness, instead,
And take the vulgar path to marriage bed?
HENRIETTE
Yes, sister.
ARMANDE
Ah! How fiercely I am goaded
By that crass “yes” which ought be never quoted.
HENRIETTE
Explain, please, your reaction, sister; why
Would you…?
ARMANDE
Oh, fie!
HENRIETTE
Excuse me?
ARMANDE
Fie! Oh, fie!
Such filth! Such seamy sordidness is stirred
And brought to mind with that one wicked word!
The image that it stirs bears such great shame
One hesitates to give the thing a name!
Do you not blench? Does it not freeze your pulse
To think of the ancillary results?
HENRIETTE
Results of that one word include a spouse,
Some children to take care of, and a house!
There’s nothing in that vision chills my breast
With such revulsion as you may suggest.
ARMANDE
And are you pleased at prospects of oppression?
HENRIETTE
At my age can there be more apt expression
Of pleasure than to celebrate a bond
To one you love whose thoughts are, likewise, fond?
And from such wedded bliss to ever grow
2 THE LEARNED LADIES – PRODUCTION SCRIPT

HENRIETTE (CONT’D)
In love of that one special one you know?
Does this fair prospect not suggest some grace?
ARMANDE
My God, how squalid! Wretched! Lowly! Base!
How can you stoop to such a petty part?
Demean your lofty spirit with the art
Of household chores and bringing up some litter
To please a man! Does this not make you bitter?
Let others, of more drab and baser cares
Get tangled in such squalid, gross affairs.
But you take lofty themes as inspiration,
And see transcendent joys and aspiration.
No care for sense or matter should you find
When you take on the pleasures of the mind!
Consider our dear mother: daily earning
The name and great regard of one of learning.
Act as her daughter! Join me in this mission!
To know a life of loftier ambition.
Discover how the pleasure study brings
Allows the mind and heart to take on wings!
A life as wife, you’ll find, is not so free
When, rather, you might wed philosophy!
Which lifts you up above the baser hoard,
And sets up reason as our sovereign lord!
It vaults the lusts which stand so in the way,
And keeps the beast within mankind at bay.
These are the cares, the loves, the grand devotions
Which stir the pure and uncorrupt emotions.
When ladies lose their love of thoughts aesthetic,
It strikes me as both wretched and pathetic!
HENRIETTE
But Heaven gives each of its many creatures
Their special traits and their distinctive features.
Not all of us can bear the cost, you see,
Of single life of stark philosophy.
And while your spirit is so rarefied
Surviving just on thoughts you’ve clarified,
My simple self can’t quite survive such dearth,
But rather seeks its substance on this Earth.
Instead of fighting what the Lord’s decided,
Let each by inborn instinct be so guided:
You, sister, through the brilliance that is yours,
May scale such heights where mind and spirit soars,
While I, below on earth, take joy in this:
The modest pleasure found in wedded bliss.
And thereby will, we two, reflect our mother,
THE LEARNED LADIES – PERUSAL SCRIPT 3

HENRIETTE (CONT’D)
In balance, each across her from the other:
You, with the lofty knowledge of ideals,
I, with the way a heartfelt pleasure feels,
You, with your great adventures of the mind,
I, with such other trappings I might find.
ARMANDE
We must aspire to more ascendancy,
Than baser traits or cruder tendency;
Should you take on the way one woman’s spitting,
I’d not suggest such imitation fitting.
HENRIETTE
Your brilliant mind would never know its start
Had mother not, with head, have had some heart.
And it was good for you, dear, that she wed,
And not just brought philosophy to bed!
At least acknowledge, sister, here, the worth
Of traits which came to bring about your birth,
And just because you scorn to be a wife,
Do not deny some future scholar’s life.
ARMANDE
I see how base desires have crudely carried
Intents you have to mate and be married.
But tell me now just where your mind might wander;
You surely don’t intend to wed Clitandre!
HENRIETTE
Why not, dear sister? What’s your reason? Share it.
Is he so low or thoughtless? Lacking merit?
ARMANDE
Well, no, but you must know it’s rather crude
To steal a man who, for some other, sued,
And surely everyone here would agree,
The sighs he’s spent have all been aimed at me.
HENRIETTE
But sighs stirred from such arrows shot by cupid
Seem to you to be scornful, even stupid.
To marriage you take on this hostile stand,
As it’s philosophy that wins your hand,
Clitandre can’t quite soften your sharp stance,
So why might not some other cut this dance?
ARMANDE
While I may worship pleasures of the brain,
I might yet want Clitandre in my train.
4 THE LEARNED LADIES – PRODUCTION SCRIPT

ARMANDE (CONT’D)
I may avoid the sordid stuff you mention,
And yet be pleased to ply the man’s attention.
HENRIETTE
I never would petition or exhort
To stop Clitandre paying you your court,
But once you gave him such a strong rejection
I took the love that swung in my direction.
ARMANDE
When hungry lover comes to you so famished
Can you believe his former love has vanished?
Can offers of such love quite ever be sound
When it should bounce back to you on the rebound?
HENRIETTE
He says so, and I think it’s truth he tells.
ARMANDE
Oh, sister. You are truly something else!
If he should, from his former love, be shrinking,
It’s simply self-deceptive wishful thinking.
HENRIETTE
I can’t read minds that hide such double dealings,
But let’s ask him, together, of his feelings:
I see Clitandre coming; we’ll solicit
He make intentions clear and quite explicit.
THE LEARNED LADIES – PERUSAL SCRIPT 5

SCENE 2
CLITANDRE, ARMANDE & HENRIETTE
HENRIETTE
My sister’s sense, here, leaves me less secure,
Of if your feelings are completely sure.
Could you, Clitandre, clarify and name
If she or I should hold your true love’s claim?
ARMANDE
Oh, no, I couldn’t make you, here, give voice
In having to affirm a heart-felt choice;
I’m sure that it would pain you to make clear
Such tender feelings with us both right here.
CLITANDRE
Oh, no, Madame, my heart can’t bend the truth;
Expression of such pleasure’s not uncouth,
And I am not the very least embarrassed
To speak of charms I’ve treasured, loved and cherished,
And it would be deceit to try to hide;
My love, affections, all, lie on
(gesturing to Henriette)
this side.
You must not be disheartened at my choice,
Considering the choosing you gave voice.
My feelings once burned with consuming fire,
And you could see the strength of my desire,
I offered you a love that was eternal,
Which you then saw as faulty or infernal,
And my expression of such strong attraction
But simply fed your own self-satisfaction.
And feeling like a toy, a tool, a joke,
I sought reprieve from bondage’ cruel yoke.
And so it was within these joyful eyes
Where fond love found affectionate replies.
Her feeling never struck me as half-hearted
As she cared for the heart you had discarded.
And while I may regret my former blindness,
My heart has been rekindled by her kindness.
As such, I beg you, Madam, in your dealings,
You not try to inflame my former feelings,
Or to win back a heart you once did wrongs,
For I know where, till death, my heart belongs.
ARMANDE
You so suppose, sir, well beyond your station:
That I might bear such sordid inclination!
6 THE LEARNED LADIES – PRODUCTION SCRIPT

ARMANDE (CONT’D)
And to suggest I seek where I did spurn
Strikes me as simply speaking out of turn!
HENRIETTE
Ah! Gently, Sister! Where is that restraint
That so transcends emotion’s evil taint,
And keeps one’s anger ever in control?
ARMANDE
Oh, you should take the moderating role,
When in your heat of passion you commit
Without your parents’ input into it?
Your duty dictates molding to their vision,
Not to negotiate your own position!
They hold dominion over you most regal
And to pre-empt their power is illegal.
HENRIETTE
I thank you, sister; you get to the root, see,
Of how I now so derelict my duty.
I have, with your good lessons, been so blessed,
You see, I plan to do as you suggest:
Clitandre, please, erase this vice by seeing
The parents to whom I owe all my being:
Get their permission, and legitimize
This match before the world’s approving eyes.
CLITANDRE
I shall bend all my will upon this mission,
And only waited for your kind permission.
ARMANDE
You seem to take a sort of dark delight
In vexing me here with resentful spite.
HENRIETTE
By no means, Sister; could I so suppose
Small-minded envy where such wisdom grows?
To think you’d waver from philosophy
For some resentment you might toss at me!
In fact, I know you, rather, as the sort
To give her sister backing and support.
Stand with me, Sister! Second his request!
Enhance the hope which we have here expressed,
And thereby, side by side, we three may all…
ARMANDE
Such arrogance, my Sister, oh, such gall!
You mock me, with discarded crumbs I threw…
THE LEARNED LADIES – PERUSAL SCRIPT 7

HENRIETTE
Discarded he may be, but I see you
Have not quite yet let go, and with the chance,
Would well resume your tortured, teasing dance.
ARMANDE
Such supposition’s hardly worth my sport,
And I’ll not answer asinine retort.
HENRIETTE
You rise above my undeserved complaint,
I laud your philosophic self-restraint.
8 THE LEARNED LADIES – PRODUCTION SCRIPT

SCENE 3
CLITANDRE & HENRIETTE
HENRIETTE
She was disturbed by your sincere avowal.
CLITANDRE
A just repayment for her endless scowl!
It was her foolish pride that played a part
In forcing me to say what’s in my heart,
But since you clear the way, at last I’m free
To see your father—
HENRIETTE
It’s mother you should see.
My father would, of course, say “Sure,” or “Great!”
But his pronouncements have much lesser weight;
Fair Heaven fashioned him a diplomat,
While mother treats him like a welcome mat!
She lays down rules as her odd whimsy hits,
Then rearranges till her logic fits.
And so, before you find you’ve gotten trapped
In arguments with her, you might adapt
A bit so that, with she, and Aunt Belise
You proffer some appealing pleasantries.
CLITANDRE
I find it arduous to be assembling
An attitude deceitful and dissembling,
I can’t accept they’re all quite all that learned;
To play the part of sage, one has to earn it,
And with the way they act and put on shows
It’s hard for me to play up to their pose.
I’d rather that some ignorance they’d fake
Than learn a lot just for the learning’s sake.
I’d want my wife to study for herself,
And not just to display what’s on her shelf.
To quote these authors, drop acquaintance’ names,
Caught up in all these “better-than-you” games.
To so enshrine the slightest passing thought
In which some victim may be trapped and caught…
I love your mother, for what she’s created,
Although I’d wish her influence deflated.
I cannot make myself repeat and parrot
Her thoughts of this Trissotin! I can’t bear it!
She makes him out to be some brilliant wit,
But I cannot see evidence of it.
Each knowledgeable person knows at once
The man’s a drab, a dullard and a dunce!
THE LEARNED LADIES – PERUSAL SCRIPT 9

CLITANDRE (CONT’D)
His works expose each superficial wish,
And all his writing ends as wrap for fish!
HENRIETTE
I much agree; his writings and his speech
All clang and whimper, bang and scratch and screech,
But since he lives within my mother’s graces,
You should respect him, to his several faces.
To play the lover, one must learn to cope
With all who live within his true love’s scope.
And so no dark objections may be raised,
The mangy household dog, too, must be praised.
CLITANDRE
Of course, you’re right, and I will follow suit,
Yet of Trissotin I must stay more mute.
I cannot hold myself as so debased
To praise such fraudulence and so much waste!
I read some of the work that he’d produced,
And knew him ‘ere we two were introduced.
The bloated pedantry which filled his writing
Revealed him to me at initial sighting.
The height of his presumptiveness, inanity
Of all his observations. And the vanity!
The confidence of his great self-absorption,
For which he cuts himself the greatest portion!
It seems his one, chief happiness, is he,
In praise of whom his writing is most free.
So smug, so self-assured, so oily, smarmy,
He thinks himself in charge of some vast army!
HENRIETTE
You have good eyes to see all that so true!
CLITANDRE
That wasn’t all; I saw his face, there, too!
Just from the bad collection of his verse
I saw the folded brow, the lips that purse,
Each detail drawn in such a stiff, smug way,
That when I saw him, shopping the Palais,
I said, “That is Trissotin, I would bet!”
And it was he: that man I’d never met!
HENRIETTE
Oh, such a story!
CLITANDRE
No, that’s how it went!
But here’s your aunt. I’ll work on her consent,
10 THE LEARNED LADIES – PRODUCTION SCRIPT

CLITANDRE (CONT’D)
If she should wish to see this match be tied,
She might help get your mother on our side.
THE LEARNED LADIES – PERUSAL SCRIPT 11

SCENE 4
CLITANDRE & BELISE
CLITANDRE
Madame, allow a lover, if you would
To take this chance to forge some greater good,
For I must tell you of my love, and how—
BELISE
Oh, sir! You mustn’t tell me all this now!
If you have joined the ranks of all my swain,
Just tell me with your eyes, but don’t explain!
Your eyes must be your heart’s lone emissary,
And coarse displays are hardly necessary!
Yes, love me, pine and burn; that is expected,
But don’t show how profoundly you’re affected.
As long as you keep how you feel inside,
Then I don’t need to censor you or chide,
But if you speak of love, so free and wild,
Then from my sight you’ll need to be exiled!
CLITANDRE
My passions, Ma’am, are naught to worry of:
Fair Henriette’s the object of my love,
And I am seeking, here, your strong support,
In winning her as I should pay my court.
BELISE
Oh, that’s a tricky dodge, and very witty!
I don’t believe I’ve heard a turn so pretty!
He spoke one name, while she well knew it, see;
That strikes the height of ingenuity!
CLITANDRE
Madame, I did not mean to speak with wit,
But rather, my sincerest sense of it:
By all the grace a man might hope to get,
I am in love and loved by Henriette.
It’s Henriette that I do so desire,
And marriage with her to which I aspire,
And in establishment of this connection,
I only ask you favor my affection.
BELISE
I spy the art behind your elocution
And see your clever trick of substitution,
I’ll speak with you, here, in this selfsame code,
And answer you within your witty mode,
Your “Henriette” does not desire a mate,
And those who sue for her are doomed to wait.
12 THE LEARNED LADIES – PRODUCTION SCRIPT

CLITANDRE
Enough, Madame! It seems that you’re quite bound
To turn each thing I say here upside-down!
BELISE
Oh, Sir! Have you not had enough of games?
You think your eyes can hide your heart’s fond flames?
Suffice it I’m content, here, with the art
Which strives to shroud your sad, devoted heart.
If you are humble in this, and not proud,
Your kind of worship may well be allowed.
As long as you are pure in your petition,
You may approach my shrine with my permission.
CLITANDRE
But—
BELISE
No. I really ought to go. Yes. Good.
I’ve spoken more, here, really, than I should.
CLITANDRE
You’re wrong—
BELISE
Don’t talk like I’m a goddess, see:
When you go on, it hurts my modesty.
CLITANDRE
I’m damned if it is you that I adore!
BELISE
No, silent, please. I can’t hear any more.
She exits.
CLITANDRE
The devil take her fantasies and visions!
Has any truth received more stark revisions?
I didn’t think such foolishness existed!
I’ll seek support from someone not so twisted.
THE LEARNED LADIES – PERUSAL SCRIPT 13

ACT II

SCENE 1
ARISTE
ARISTE
(addressing Clitandre, offstage)
I promise! I’ll do all that I might try,
And hurry back to you with his reply!
These lovers! How they fret and sigh and whine!
And have to have that love for which they pine!
I’ve never…
14 THE LEARNED LADIES – PRODUCTION SCRIPT

SCENE 2
CHRYSALE & ARISTE
ARISTE
(continuing)
Good day, Brother!
CHRYSALE
Ah, yes, is it?
ARISTE
Do you know, brother, what brings me to visit?
CHRYSALE
I don’t know; I’m all ears, as they all say.
ARISTE
You know of our Clitandre, if I may…?
CHRYSALE
Of course! He’s here quite often now these days!
ARISTE
And do you hold him worthy of some praise?
CHRYSALE
A man of honor, virtue, wit and vim,
There’s very few at all approaching him.
ARISTE
I broach a matter he approaches shyly,
I’m glad to know that you hold him so highly.
CHRYSALE
I knew his dad in Rome; I went there when
I traveled.
ARISTE
That is good.
CHRYSALE
A gentleman!
ARISTE
So they say!
CHRYSALE
We were twenty-eight, you know,
We both had our share of wild oats to sow!
ARISTE
Aha!
CHRYSALE
Ah, those fair Roman maids and lasses,
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