Cold Case

Prof. Housely at the University of Mary Washington is again teaching her seminar "Cold Case: Mystery and History in the Theatre," which sounds like great fun, and she's again using my play Sad Laughter to elicit discussion around the question, Did Moliere marry his own daughter? This is very satisfying to me, in some ways more satisfying than a production since the play will be studied with more focus and energy than an audience manages. Last year I also visited the class via a chat room to answer questions from the students. Hope we can do that this year as well.

Moliere's epilogue to this play remains high on my list of "best theatrical moments" I've written. He pops up out of the casket and says:

MOLIERE: Shed no tears! You rot in one grave as another;
If you don't believe that, don't ever have a mother.
The luck that gets us all got me—
Though I'm better off than most, you must agree.
Consider this: though I am dust, you're glad to pay
Right through the nose to see my plays!
Without me, Montfleury's just a name;
Because of me, he has a kind of fame.
The Archbishop of Paris is no concern of yours
Except for me — I give him the notoriety he deserves.
In other words, why shed a tear for me?
My plays live on until eternity!
Oh, I know — in your age the time is getting short,
Everywhere there's war, famine, a great environmental wart.
Yet you insist your own age is unique:
"Never has civilization reached such a peak!"
But I question this wisdom found on TV and in "Forbes,"
Though maybe that's presumptuous, coming from a corpse.
Still, I don't see our times as different, I confess,
Since in your age, as in mine, it's all a mess.
Though you've reached the moon, discovered strange galactic gasses,
Three hundred years later, the world's still full of asses!
(LA GRANGE enters.)
LA GRANGE: So we hope we've moved you and given you a little fun;
In truth,—
MOLIERE & LA GRANGE: — there's not a damn thing new beneath the sun.

This got published in "Best Stage Monologs" for whatever year it was.