Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière
DON JUAN
A Spanish nobleman Don Juan Tenorio, if he had ever existed, could not have, even in his wildest dreams, imagine that in the following centuries he would become a hero of numerous literary and music works and a synonym for an eternal lover. His countryman Tiso de Molina introduced him into the world of art at the beginning of the 17th century in his drama The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest. One of the greatest dramatists of French and world drama literature Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière took the story of the ruthless seducer of women and the defiler of the dead, which was a common theme at that time, and in 1665 his five-act comedy Don Juan or the Feast of the Stone had its world opening night. Placing the plot in Sicily, Molière leaned on his Spanish colleague and numerus legends that were spreading around the Iberian Peninsula about the eternal seducer, deceiver and charmer, thus creating a masterpiece that has, with equal intensity, been intriguing theatre authors around the world until today. Molière's drama balances between comedy and tragedy and his Don Juan, beside all the known characteristics is aware of his deeds, a man who analyses, ironizes the moves of others but also his own, who is not afraid to cross over to the dark side of human existence thus becoming a kind of tragic character. Strangely, Molière's Don Juan has never been staged in our theatre. It will have its first opening night at the CNT in Zagreb as a large-scale drama performance directed by a guest from Northern Macedonia, Dejan Projkovski, right in the year of the author's 400th birth anniversary.
