Marivaux

“Harlequin, Refined by Love” was an unlikely choice of play for a budding director: Written in 1720 by Pierre de Marivaux, a master of romantic comedy, it taps heavily into the commedia dell’arte, a genre few current French theatermakers have explored.

Marivaux’s compact play is built around stock comic characters.

The next year, she appeared in a Marivaux play directed by the influential Patrice Chéreau at his Nanterre theater.

Since the language is heavily influenced by French, a lot of it is understandable without the subtitles, and the translation is full of images that make Marivaux feel fresh again.

Hervé and Noémie are straight out of an 18th-century play by Marivaux, in which resourceful servants outwit their masters, and possibly replace them.