Don Juan

Molière’s play, written in 1665, is one of our most frequently staged and interpreted classics. The basis fot this made-for-TV version is the refusal of young Don Juan (the name means “The young one”) to submit to the demands and fossilized conventions of the adult world. To stage manager Ragnar Lyth, the drama is part of a trilogy on young rebels-three productions designed for Swedish Television’s Drama Department. “Hamlet” (a great success at INPUT 86 in Montreal) was the first, “Don Juan” is the second and “Faust” is planned as the third. In Ragnar Lyth’s version, Don Juan is a lover of freedom, a “whole-hogger” who greedily seeks and seizes all that life offers. Actor Thorsten Flinck in the title role gives the character traits of the rock star Prince. The structure of the play is splintered and the text has been deliberately revised with young viewers, used to TV, in mind. Anagolous to the structure is the imagery, inspired by the rock of today and the surrealism of such artists as Chirico and Magritte. In the visual narration, the aim has also been to give as much scope as possible to free association and fantasy, while simultaneously commentig on the narcissism ant rootlessnes of our time-a salient theme in Molière’s text and one that makes the drama topical and compelling to a modern audience. The Swedish press and the public reacted to the production with everything form unparalleled enthusiasm to horror at this controversial manner of treating a classic. We enclose the complete version and hopr, for the sake of consistency, that it will be possible to show it at INPUT in its entirely. If not, we are of course prepared to issue a shorter version.