Bores

The young lover Eraste has eyes only for Orphise, but the bores of Parisian society will not leave him in peace. Each time he begins a tender declaration, another tiresome figure arrives to commandeer the conversation: a man with endless stories about his lawsuit, another about his hunting dogs, a third who must recite his terrible verses. Molière, writing in a feverish fortnight for a royal hunting party, constructed a comedy of interruptions, a play that transforms romantic frustration into a viciously funny portrait of the unescapable tedious people who plague polite society. What makes Les Fâcheux endure is its brutal universality. The bores Molière skewers, the professional who won't shut up about his work, the hobbyist obsessed with his pursuits, the poet who demands you listen to his latest sonnet, remain instantly recognizable four centuries later. This is social comedy at its most direct, where the humor comes not from elaborate plots or masked identities but from the universal agony of being trapped by someone who cannot stop talking at you. Anyone who has ever faked a phone call to escape a dinner party knows these people intimately.