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Mail Online
23 October 2009
By Baz Bamigboye
source

Moliere’s misery love company – especially Keira’s

Damian Lewis as Alceste – Moliere’s Misanthrope – looks on disdainfully as two photographs illustrate what he regards as the shallowness of society.

The actor stars in an updated version of The Misanthrope by Martin Crimp, in which he plays a contemporary playwright distracted by a flirty American starlet played by Keira Knightley, who will be making her debut in an ensemble led by Damian that also includes Tara Fitzgerald (seen in both photographs with Keira) and Dominic Rowan.

‘This Misanthrope is angered by everything he sees around him and yet, at the same time, you might say he’s one of the great romantics in literature,’ Damian told me.

Yet Alceste has fallen in love with Jennifer, the megastar played by Keira, and she’s unable to provide the truthfulness he seeks.

Damian added: ‘Alceste is really his own worst enemy because he’s so unutterably rude when showing his dissatisfaction with the people around him.’

Director Thea Sharrock will gather her company of actors for rehearsals early next month, although Keira has been having regular singing lessons to assist voice projection. The play begins preview performances at the Comedy Theatre on December 7 and opens officially on December 17.

By first night, the play is expected to have sold well in excess of £2 million worth of tickets – a bumper bounty for a non-musical.