Tim Mooney

THOUSAND OAKS, CA - A one-man show that makes the works of 17th-century French playwright Molière instantly accessible through rhyming verse, audience participation and amazing energy will be presented at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 4, at California Lutheran University.

The free performance of Tim Mooney’s “Molière than Thou” will be held in the Preus-Brandt Forum on the Thousand Oaks campus.

In his seven years of touring with “Molière than Thou,” Mooney has introduced more than 50,000 people to the playwright.

His one-man show is an anthology of Mooney’s own translated scenes from Molière's classic, but still hilarious, witty and relevant comedies. In typical 17th-century curled wigs and costume, Mooney changes both character and personality by adding a tie or shedding a jacket. He gives the setting and theme of each selected play before assuming its principal role.

“Molière than Thou” imagines the Molière of 1671, scratching out a living as only he might, performing the funniest roles in his plays rewritten in rhymed iambic pentameter by Mooney. Molière explored farce with “The Precious Young Maidens” and “The Imaginary Cuckold,” challenged his audiences with the textured modern characterizations of “The School for Wives,” and created an uproar with the searing social commentary of “Tartuffe,” “Don Juan” and “The Misanthrope.” He finished out his career taking aim at doctors in “The Doctor in Spite of Himself,” lawyers in “The Schemings of Scapin” and middle class poseurs in “The Bourgeois Gentleman.” He died one of the most ironic deaths of all time, collapsing amid the finale of “The Imaginary Invalid” and then dying in bed without a priest or doctor willing to attend to him just as he had depicted it on the stage hours before.

Mooney is the author of 16 celebrated new versions of the plays of Molière and also composed a self-help book on acting, “Acting at the Speed of Life.”

Preus-Brandt Forum is located south of Olsen Road between Campus Drive and Mountclef Boulevard.

CLU’s Artists and Speakers Committee is sponsoring the event. For information, contact Karen Renick at renick@callutheran.edu.