From 30 October, at the Rex Theatre’s Marika Kotopouli Stage, the National Theatre of Greece presents one of the great works of the global repertoire, Molière's School for Wives, in a consummate verse translation by Chrysa Prokopaki. Supported by a daring ensemble cast, Alexandros Mylonas makes a dynamic return to directing with this riotous comedy of misunderstandings, promising an evening of theatrical delight. But if this play about the emancipation of women through love scandalised 17^th-century audiences by openly challenging the patriarchal system of its time, what does it reveal about our society four centuries later?

About the play
Arnolphe is a man of mature years who longs to be happily married but is haunted by the fear of being cuckolded. He thus selects a girl from a poor family, four-year-old Agnès, raising her away from the world to become a naive, obedient and faithful spouse. Having confined her to a nunnery for much of her early life, he then keeps her isolated in a house near his own, assigning two servants to watch over her like hawks. Eventually, it is time for Arnolphe to fulfil his long-held desire and make Agnès his wife. But life, not to be so easily controlled, has other plans for him. Agnès has romantic feelings for a young man, Horace, and to make matters worse, he feels the same way about her! The chance meeting of the middle-aged would-be lover with his rival soon ignites a flurry of complications. Will Arnolphe succeed in bringing his plan to fruition and making Agnès his wife? Or will she dare to make her own choices and follow her heart?

The School for Wives was first staged on 26 December 1662 at the Palais Royal Theatre in Paris. It is not only one of Molière’s finest plays, but of world drama in general, thanks to its pace and the way in which it frames and elaborates the ideas of women's education and freedom. It is believed to have been inspired by Boccaccio's Decameron and Aretino's Ragionamenti trilogy, and more than ten years before The School for Wives, one of Molière’s own early works, The Jealousy of le Barbouillé, similarly focussed on a husband’s obsessive behaviour. The same theme is explored in Sganarelle, or the Imaginary Cuckold (1660), Don Garcia of Navarre or the Jealous Prince (1660), The School for Husbands (1661), and George Dandin, or the Abashed Husband (1668). 

 At the time the play was written, in 1662, Molière's troupe was sharing the Palais Royal with the Italian actors of Paris, and it began a run of his greatest works. In the same year, he married Armande Béjart, twenty years his junior, which was met by some with disapproval. The School for Wives sparked enormous controversy for about two years. The text of the play was published on 17 March 1663, while in June, Molière responded to his detractors with Critique of the School for Wives.