Did you hear the one about the Mother Superior who was so busy casting
the first stone that she got caught in flagrante delicto with her
lover? What about the drunk with a Savior complex who was fool enough to
believe himself to be the Second Coming? And that's nothing compared to
what happens when comedy gets its grubby paws on the confessional. Enter
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century French farce, the bestseller of a world
that stands to tell us a lot about the enduring influence of a
Shakespeare or a Molière. It's the sacrilegious world of Immaculate
Deception, the third volume in a series of stage-friendly translations
from the Middle French. Brought to you through the wonders of Open
Access, these twelve engagingly funny satires target religious hypocrisy
in that in-your-face way that only true slapstick can muster. There is
literally nothing sacred.
Why this repertoire and why now? The current political climate has had
dire consequences for the pleasures of satire at a cultural moment when
we have never needed it more. It turns out that the proverbial Dark Ages
had a lighter side; and France's over 200 rollicking, frolicking,
singing, and dancing comedies--more extant than in any other
vernacular--have waited long enough for their moment in the spotlight.
They are seriously funny: funny enough to reclaim their place in
cultural history, and serious enough to participate in the larger
conversation about what it means to be a social influencer, then and
now. Rather than relegate medieval texts to the dustbin of history, an
unabashedly feminist translation can reframe and reject the sexism of
bygone days by doing what theater always invites us to do: interpret,
inflect, and adapt.
