PROSPECT PARK, Brooklyn (PIX11) — The French playwright Molière isn’t exactly a household name for many of us, but there’s a new, free production in Brooklyn that’s trying to change all that.
It was a full house for this free production of Molière’s “Don Juan” in Prospect Park, but why is this 361-year-old play being performed in the heart of Brooklyn?
“Don Juan” is all about a womanizer who lives by his own rules, breaks the hearts of so many women and is openly immoral. To the cast and director of this free production at Prospect Park’s Lefrak Center, this play, written in 1665, feels so modern.
“Molière is a 350 to 400 year-old dead white man from France and what does that have to do with Brooklyn, one of the most diverse cities, diverse boroughs ever,” Kaliswa Brewster, who plays Sganarelle and is a board member of Moliere in the Park, told PIX11 News. “Molière was really holding up a mirror to society to show the hypocrisy of society,” she added.
Close to 10,000 people are expected to see this free production of Molière’s “Don Juan” in Prospect Park this month. Cellist and composer Johnathan Moore was thrilled to be part of this project.
“This play is really awesome,” Moore, the cellist and composer, told PIX11 News. “It’s about a womanizer and how they get their justice. It’s a play everyone should see,” he added.
Lucie Tiberghien founded Molière in the park during the pandemic and now estimates close to 25,000 people have seen the work of a playwright they may never have known otherwise.
“Not only did we want the theater to be free and accessible to all,” Lucie Tiberghien, the director and founder of Molière in the Park, told PIX11 News. “But we wanted to bring the work of Molière, which, even though it is 400 years old, would just resonate,” she added.
Molière in the Park’s Don Juan runs until September 27. For more information, go to moliereinthepark.org