Le Misanthrope - Eric Elmosnino - Tournée

Le Misanthrope at Le Toboggan

At Le Toboggan, we take pride in welcoming landmark authors, major performers, and audiences eager for living, breathing theatre. With Le Misanthrope, we host a cornerstone of the repertoire and a production carried by the incisive stage presence of Eric Elmosnino. Our stage is designed to let language ring clearly and to keep actors and spectators in a lively, immediate relationship; in this setting, Molière’s wit, bite, and moral tension are amplified. Expect a crisp articulation of verse, duels of rhetoric that feel freshly minted, and a chamber-like proximity that highlights the contradictions at the heart of social performance and private truth. Our technical team has fine-tuned the acoustics and lighting so that shifts in tone—irony, tenderness, fury—read instantly from every seat. The architecture of Le Toboggan favors clean sightlines, letting the choreography of entrances, exits, and asides add a physical counterpoint to the text. For us, hosting this evening also means curating an experience around it: attentive welcome, a pace that respects the audience’s concentration, and a dramaturgical clarity that draws new spectators into Molière while rewarding seasoned theatregoers.

Eric Elmosnino: presence and precision

Eric Elmosnino’s artistry sits at the confluence of linguistic precision and emotional risk. Many spectators first discovered him through the intensity and nuance he brought to the screen in Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque); on stage, that same finesse translates into an ear for rhythm and subtext that feels tailor-made for Molière’s crystalline architecture. From our vantage point as a venue, his work exemplifies how a leading actor can invite an audience into the heartbeat of a classic without flattening its contradictions. He engages partners with tact and attack, calibrating irony and sincerity so that each exchange becomes a miniature duel. In recent seasons, Elmosnino has continued to move fluidly between theatre, cinema, and television, refining a craft that privileges listening as much as declamation. That ongoing activity is palpable in rehearsal: the responsiveness, the curiosity in adjusting tempo and breath, the pleasure in discovering how a line lands differently in a new acoustic. Welcoming him at Le Toboggan means offering a space where that craft can be perceived in detail, where the smallest inflection reaches the back row, and where the scenic frame supports his play with distance, intimacy, and surprise.

Le Misanthrope remains a ruthless mirror: a comedy that exposes performance in social life, the cost of truth-telling, and the seductions of charm. In our theater, the contours of this world become tangible—salons where gossip and flattery circulate, thresholds where characters weigh pride against desire, and pauses where silence bites harder than words. We present this evening as part of a wider Tournée that demonstrates how classical drama thrives when it travels, meeting audiences with different temperaments yet the same appetite for precision and debate. For spectators at Le Toboggan, the encounter is direct: language projected with clarity, gestures outlined by sculpted light, and a scenography that prefers eloquence to clutter. You will recognize the sting of Molière’s satire in the way alliances form and fracture, in the quicksilver movement from jest to judgment, and in the exposure of our own contradictions as we laugh. Our house values productions that trust the audience’s intelligence, and this is one: it invites you to listen closely, to follow the line of thought as it turns, and to feel how the music of speech becomes action. We are delighted to set the stage so that the play’s rigor and Eric Elmosnino’s vitality can meet you in the present tense.

Le Misanthrope - Eric Elmosnino - Tournée dans d'autres salles à Lyon