“I rework old masters whose copyright has expired.” Molière's The Miser and The Imaginary Invalid in the Plays by Andrej Rozman

Abstract

The paper examines Andrej Rozman’s creative reception of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière’s come- dies The Miser and The Imaginary Invalid. The Miser, which had been translated into Slovenian a number of times, was recast in 2007 by the Slovenian comedy writer as a comic one-man play featuring Harpagon as an entrepreneur, who discusses many topical Slovenian problems in front of the audience, with occasional allusions to his son and daughter, whom he wants to marry off according to his economic interests. In this modern version, everything is explained and solved by the daughter’s phone call. In 2011, The Imaginary Invalid inspired another of Rozman’s plays, Hiphophondrija, which features the family father as a chatty tycoon. Closest to the original is the scene with the yo- ung doctor. Both texts are travesties, rendering Molière’s plots in a lower register and setting them in contemporary Slovenia. On the other hand, certain scenes which come closest to Molière are couched in ‘precious’ idiom.