La Bête (2010)

David Hirson’s brilliant, intellectually fierce high comedy 'La Bête' received a spectacular, star-powered Broadway revival at the Music Box Theatre in 2010 following its hit West End run. Written entirely in rhyming iambic pentameter couplets to brilliantly parody classic Molière drawing-room structures, the fast-paced farcical narrative unfolds inside a wealthy theatrical estate in 17th-century France, tracking an elite, buttoned-up court dramatist whose artistic stability is thrown into absolute farcical chaos when his aristocratic patron forces him to induct Valere, a flamboyant, vulgar, and hyper-confident street entertainer, into his high-minded acting troupe. Directed by Matthew Warchus, the production starred Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce, and Joanna Lumley.