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Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)
Moliere's Don Juan: As Relevant in 2006 As It Was in 1665
Recently, I spent a weekend in Washington, D.C. While there I attended a play, Molière's Don Juan. It was an enjoyable production thanks to the Shakespeare Theatre staging, the marvelous performers and the fact that the issues Molière addressed in 1665 are just as topical today. Kindly pardon my French, but my overall response to the play's message is, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" ("The more things change, the more they stay the same"). The expression is attributed to different authors (in English) but almost always (in the original French) to Alphonse Karr (Les Guêpes: Les Femmes, 1885).
"Don Juan" shocked the Paris establishment in 1665. The influential of that time were offended because the main character mocked social conventions and hypocrisies of society. Don Juan and Moliere's earlier Tartuffe were censored, much like criticism of Islam or cartoons of the Muslim's prophet are censored today. Don Juan is, however, "charismatic, anarchic and wickedly funny" to the non-pious, just as promised in the playbill "Asides." In 1665, there was little distinction between church and state. Molière's targets included the decadent, hypocritical culture and the politics of the French nation under Louis XIV, with particular attention to the absurdities of religion. Further, no First Amendment-like guarantees protected skeptics like Don Juan (or Molière). Challenges to the society's strict religiosity represented genuine profiles in courage. Some wanted Molière "flung to wild beasts;" another thought being struck by lightning would do nicely.
What scandalized then seems much less profane today. Who (save for whack-job televangelists like Pat Robertson or fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) are offended by infidels? Well, maybe some people. But, even the most extreme (Western) believers in our age do not expect non-believers to take seriously threats (which appeared in varied forms, including a large statute, the Grim Reaper, assorted apparitions and even a hole in the ground leading straight to the fires of hell) that Heaven itself will be employed to punish transgressors for their sins! A real hell-raiser and scalawag, our anti-hero Don Juan was defiant in refusing to change his ways. He was admirably willing to risk all for the freedom to think, act and live as he pleased.
However commendable his wit, eloquence, independence, and courage to defy foolish conventions and superstitions that stultified nearly everyone else, I cannot proclaim him a wellness role model. In fact, he was a scoundrel, one who lied to and mistreated women, swindled his creditors and deliberately deceived those around him. Yet, somehow, like Tony Soprano, the TV mobster hundreds of years later, he was sort of a likeable scoundrel. No surprise that Don Juan is described as "Western literature's most dangerously attractive seducer and social critic who proves a dead French guy can be every bit as cuttingly cynical about our society as any modern-day misanthrope." (The Washington City Paper)
Anyway, it's fun to get out once in a while and seek wellness lessons in unusual places. If you are in Washington, DC or anywhere this play may be offered, I recommend you check it out.
Meanwhile, reform your ways and always look on the bright side of life.
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