We went to the theatre last week, the girlfriends and I, organised by BF2, with a view to seeing David Tennant and no real regard to the play itself.

The problem with the strategy is that you end up sitting there for at least an hour enduring a topic that’s difficult. I loved Don Juan. BF2 struggled to cope with the sex. Lord knows how she’ll cope with the bestiality in the next play she’s booked (TheGoat).

The play was not without it’s problems – mainly the second half where despite  compromise and lying to fool his father, promising to reform, Don Juan then goes on to refuse to apologise for his behaviour in order to save his own life. It just doesn’t quite fly. If the character has already sacrificed his integrity once, why not a second time?

But it was carried by David Tennant, who was an astonishingly physical and charismatic lead.

The play is based on the original morality play by Moliere.

Dom Juan or The Feast with the Statue (French: Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre is a French play based on the legend of  Don Juan. Molière’s characters Dom Juan and Sganarelle are the French counterparts to the Spanish Don Juan and Catalinón, characters who are also found in Mozart’s Italian opera Don Giovanni and Leporello. Dom Juan is the last part in Molière’s hypocrisy trilogy, which also includes The School for Wives and Tartuffe.

The modern play works because it sticks to the anti-hypocrisy line.

Everything about Marber’s Don Juan offends the canons of political correctness. He treats women as foxes to be hunted. He wantonly discards his do-gooding bride, Elvira. At one point, he is assiduously fellated by one woman while he hits on another, a young bride whose husband he has severely maimed. In the words of his servant, Stan, he’s a sexual pirate: “He’d do it with anything – a hole in the ozone layer.” 

So why does this privileged monster provoke our appalled fascination? His nihilism and defiance of a damnation-threatening statue carry little charge in an irreligious age yet the anti-hypocrisy stand holds up almost too well.

At one point, in a topical gag that elicits cheers, he claims: “I’m not a rapist – I don’t grab pussy.” He also has a key soliloquy in which he rails at everything from billionaire tax dodgers to racists posing as patriots and condemns the vanity of an age in which the urge for self-expression has dwindled into: “Hello, welcome to my vlog. Today I bought a plum.” The irony is that Don Juan is, in many ways, the biggest narcissist of all.

The Moliere play was originally withdrawn after only 1 performance after attacks by Molière’s critics, who considered he was offending religion and the king by eulogizing a libertine. The religious elements of the play almost disappear to the modern audience and had to be redrawn to include an Islamic element. Apparently only muslims can be trusted to be conflicted about blaspheming against their God.

The Moliere play was published in a heavily censored version for the first time in 1682. Based on an even earlier play by Tirsa, the characters from the two plays differ in several aspects. Molière’s Dom Juan clearly states that he is an atheist, but the Don Juan of Tirso de Molina’s original play is a Catholic who believes that he can repent of his evil deeds many years later before he dies. However, his death comes sooner than expected and he finds that his attempts to repent and confess his sins are ineffective. In both plays the main character is condemned to Hell.

In the current version, we are left entirely uncertain and indifferent to whether or not Don Juan is doomed to hell. It is enough for the modern audience to see him condemned to death, the afterlife is and afterthought not visited.

The original play was a costly failure.  Molière was ordered to delete a certain number of scenes and lines which, according to his censors, made a mockery of their Catholic faith. This play will make money despite a shockingly short run – a big name and it’s anti-hypocrisy, anti-establishment stance will make sure of that.