The 2026 production of “The Misanthrope,” written by Martin Crimp and directed by Indhu Rubasingham at London’s Royal National Theatre, transposes French playwright Molière’s classic dark comedy of the same name to a modern setting with a gender-swapped central character. The play was screened in Loew Auditorium on Oct. 10 as part of the Hopkins Center for the Arts’s “National Theatre in HD” series.
Sandra Oh stars in “The Misanthrope” as Alice, a brilliant and famous novelist who openly rejects the superficiality of modern society, insincere expressions of kindness and the influence of digital culture. As Alice increasingly speaks her mind without regard for social expectations, she finds herself at odds with those around her, provoking intense public backlash and causing her personal relationships to unravel.
Crimp’s 1996 adaptation of “The Misanthrope” satirized the superficiality of London’s theater and media elite at the time. The 2026 production shifts its focus to cancel culture in the digital age, exploring how social media has intensified the consequences of expressing unpopular opinions. This evolution reveals the enduring brilliance of Molière’s satire, whose timeless theme of social hypocrisy can be reinterpreted to reflect the changing values and anxieties of contemporary society.
The play opens in medias res, with Alice and her best friend John (Paul Chahidi), a polite and pragmatic literary agent who acts as her foil, arguing over his exaggeratedly affectionate greeting of a woman he barely remembers. To Alice, this kind of interaction exemplifies the everyday dishonesty that society disguises as politeness. When she breaks the fourth wall to ask, “Shall I explain to everyone?” she turns to the audience as though inviting them to recognize what everyone else seems blind to: the hypocrisy, empty pleasantries and needless lies so deeply woven into the fabric of society that they have become virtually invisible.
In the next scene, Esmée (Imogen Elliott), an aspiring novelist and admirer of Alice’s work, arrives with a manuscript riddled with cliches and fashionable platitudes. Alice delivers the brutally honest assessment she has been asked to give, criticizing the banality of Esmée’s writing and advising her to “seduce” her audience rather than expect praise she has not earned.
However, Alice’s honest and well-intentioned advice backfires. Esmée, a popular feminist book influencer, cannot accept the criticism. Their spat is further complicated by the fact that Esmée’s father sits on the board of the publishing house that publishes Alice’s novels. She uses her online following to turn public opinion against Alice, accusing her of inappropriate behavior. Yet Alice remains unfazed by the ensuing backlash, refusing to compromise her convictions despite the professional and personal cost.
Beyond this, Alice is a nuanced and complex character. Her conversations with John establish her as a staunch antifascist and unapologetic feminist, yet she is also sharply critical of Esmée, a feminist influencer. Alice associates Esmée’s views with what she calls “liberal nihilism,” a framework she condemns for accepting a culture in which mediocrity is tolerated and everything is treated as equally deserving of praise, regardless of its actual merit. Alice’s refusal to conform extends across the political spectrum: She challenges right-wing identity politics just as readily as left-wing political groupthink. Her unwillingness to align herself with either camp makes her a genuine outsider, a fiercely independent thinker whose commitment to her convictions is both admirable and alienating.
Alice is also complex in her romantic attachments: She is in love with Stefan (Tom Mison), a vain actor known for dating younger women who is embroiled in a custody dispute with his ex-wife and is questionably loyal to Alice. This dynamic is faithful to Molière’s original play, in which cynical aristocrat Alceste falls in love with Célimène, a worldly and socially ambitious woman who embodies precisely the superficiality and social conventions he despises. Alice’s relationship with Stefan makes her more human, revealing how love can blind even the most uncompromising individual to contradictions in her own life. Although Stefan’s infidelity and gaslighting are touched upon, their implications are never fully explored, much like the conflict surrounding Esmée and the culture of public condemnation that ensnares Alice, could have been developed further.
Perhaps Crimp’s refusal to focus the play on any single contemporary issue reflects Alice’s broader rejection of society as a whole: What she despises is not one particular ideology or cultural trend, but the pervasive erosion of sincerity and truth. Her longing to escape is captured in the striking line, “Sometimes I dream of a clean white space entirely disinfected from the human race.” Ultimately, the play’s concerns transcend any one social debate, finding their clearest expression in Alice’s lament that “fake is the default. Day after day there’s a new — listen to me — assault on truth, and despair becomes normal.”
This despair and indifference become especially evident in the production’s final scene, which marks a striking shift from the lavish but realistic story so far to outright surrealism. The characters, dressed in baroque costumes for a party organized by Stefan, speak in alexandrines, their heightened language and affected delivery making their interactions feel increasingly artificial. The recitation of their respective lines creates the sense that they are consciously performing roles within the performance itself, while Alice stands apart, conspicuously out of costume and watching the absurdity unfold. The scene evokes the theatrum mundi — the notion of the world as a theatre in which individuals wear masks and perform roles, famously explored in “Les Caractères” by Jean de La Bruyère, a seventeenth-century French moralist.
The party’s illusion becomes all the more unsettling when Stefan refuses Alice’s invitation to escape London’s suffocating social scene by fleeing with her to the countryside. Although John appears tempted to follow Alice as she departs, he ultimately remains behind, suggesting that even their friendship cannot overcome the social bonds that keep him in place. Alice’s departure leaves the others free to resume their performance undisturbed. “Don’t you see we’re better off without her?” asks Stefan’s manager, revealing how readily the group will close ranks to preserve its comfortable social order rather than confront the contradictions Alice has exposed.
