The Learned Ladies

The Learned Ladies is a fast-paced farce poking fun at intellectual pretension, pseudo-intellectual salons, and fawning social climate. Moliere’s The Learned Ladies is a fast-paced farce poking fun at intellectual pretension, pseudo-intellectual salons, and fawning social climbers. Henriette and Clitandre are in love and plan to marry. They have the approval of Henriette’s father, but her mother, Philaminte, rules the roost and is opposed to the union. She and her inner circle are obsessed with image and influence, and have fallen under the spell of Trissotin, a mediocre poet who fancies himself an important intellectual and social “influencer” in Parisian society. Philaminte is blind to his true character and determined to have him as her son-in-law instead of the good-hearted down-to-earth Clitandre. The play was originally published in verse in 1672. Adrienne Sher has loosely adapted the five act script into two acts in prose, using the original as the foundation and borrowing from a variety of other sources.