The Misanthrope review – reworking woos in its human drama

National Theatre, London
Heroic but imperfect modern-day version of the 17th-century classic is stuffed full of debates about how we might live differently

Molière’s misanthrope here is a bestselling writer in a stylish trouser suit, gender-reversed as Alice and Americanised in the formidable form of Sandra Oh. When an aspiring novelist asks for literary advice, Alice tells her to always make her writing “seductive”.

Is that what playwright Martin Crimp has aspired to do here? His modern-day version is certainly as high-wire an endeavour as his beat-boxing reboot of Cyrano de Bergerac, a French canonical text which he turned into something new, dangerous and yes, extremely seductive.

At the National theatre, London, until 1 August.