Cover art by Pierre Bonnard
Madame Melville
This play is included in the collection:
Play Description
MADAME MELVILLE, set in Paris in 1966, before that city exploded in protest, presents the story of a fifteen-year-old American, Carl, and his beautiful teacher, Claudie Melville. The Daily Telegraph praised MADAME MELVILLE as “a play about art, music, friendship and the irrecoverable, unforgettable moment when an adolescent realizes that the world is full of wonder.”
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
- Productions
Press Quotes
“Nelson, in his 100-minute play, intertwines two familiar themes: the sexual initiation of the young and the confrontation of American innocence by European experience. His hero, Carl, now married with children, reminisces about Paris is 1966. We see how, as 15-year-old student at the American school, he falls under the spell of a beguiling literature teacher. One night, after an extramural film excursion, Carl stays behind in her flat. For him, this offers a magical introduction to the world of art, music, adult emotion and Kama Sutra sex. For Claudie, the literature teacher, this brief encounter is largely a way of overcoming her devastation at the breakup of an affair. But what gives the play its peculiar charm is the tender collision between two people at different stages of their emotional cycle: Carl has what Henry James called ‘the hungry futurity of youth’ while the messed-up Claudie has the restless solitude of the permanent other woman … Nelson has pinned down with exact compassion what happens when two worlds collide.” —Michael Billington, The Guardian
“There’s much talk of matters sensual in the play and offstage there’s the initiation of a minor; but sex isn’t exactly the theme. Rather it’s about loneliness … there are moments when it threatens to decline into that cliché: liberal fulfilling Paris … versus boring, restrictive Dumbsville, Ohio. But Nelson, an American dramatist much performed in Britain, proves himself defter, subtler than that.” —The London Times
“What makes the play so special is the vivid precision of the writing … [Nelson] achieves a surprising variety of emotion on what might seem a narrow dramatic canvas. At times the comedy is unashamedly broad … Yet the writing also cuts remarkably deep, not least in the subtly understated closing moments when mortality suddenly intrudes on this Arcadian idyll. For beyond the touching sexual comedy, MADAME MELVILLE is an exquisitely painful reminder of lost love, lost innocence and lost youth.” —The Daily Telegraph
Author(s)
Richard NelsonRichard Nelson's plays include the four-play series, THE APPLE FAMILY (THAT HOPEY CHANGEY THING, SWEET AND SAD, SORRY, REGULAR SINGING (Nominated for Outstanding Play in Drama Desk Awards 2014; Public Theater, 2010 – 2013), NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS (Lincoln Center Theater, 2013), FAREWELL TO THE THEATRE (Hampstead Theatre, 2012), HOW SHAKESPEARE WON THE WEST, (Huntington Theater, 2008), CONVERSATIONS AT TUSCULUM (Public Theater, 2008), FRANK'S HOME (Goodman Chicago, Playwrights Horizons, 2007), RODNEY'S WIFE (Playwrights Horizons, 2004), WHERE I COME FROM (National Theatre Connections), MADAME MELVILLE (which ran in the West End starring Macaulay Culkin and Irene Jacob and opened in May 2001 Off-Broadway); GOODNIGHT CHILDREN EVERYWHERE (winner of Olivier Award for Best New Play, 2000), KENNETH'S FIRST PLAY (with Colin Chambers, RSC), THE GENERAL FROM AMERICA (at the RSC and the Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York), NEW ENGLAND (RSC and Manhattan Theater Club), MISHA'S PARTY (with Alexander Gelman, RSC and Williamstown Theater Festival), TWO SHAKESPEAREAN ACTORS (Tony nomination for Best Play, RSC and Broadway), COLUMBUS AND THE DISCOVERY OF JAPAN (RSC Barbican), SOME AMERICANS ABROAD (Olivier nomination, Best Comedy; RSC, Lincoln Center and Broadway), LEFT, BETWEEN EAST AND WEST (Hampstead), PRINCIPIA SCRIPTORAE (winner of Time Out Award, RSC and Manhattan Theater Club), THE RETURN OF PINOCCHIO, AN AMERICAN COMEDY, BAL, CONJURING AN EVENT, RIP VAN WINKLE, JUNGLE COUP, THE KILLING OF YABLONSKI, THE VIENNA NOTES (Obie Award). His musicals include JAMES JOYCE'S THE DEAD (starring Christopher Walken and Blair Brown; Playwrights Horizons, Belasco Theatre, Broadway, Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, Kennedy Center, Washington; for which he received a Tony Award in 2000 for Best Musical Book), CHESS (the book for the Broadway musical), PARADISE FOUND (dir: Harold Prince and Susan Strohman), MY LIFE WITH ALBERTINE (with Ricky Ian Gordon; Playwrights Horizons), UNFINISHED PIECE FOR A PLAYER PIANO (with Peter Golub). His translations and adaptations include TYNAN starring Corin Redgrave (with Colin Chambers, RSC and West End), LOLITA with Brian Cox (National), Molnar's THE GUARDSMAN (Kennedy Center), Carriere's THE CONTROVERSY (Public Theater), Fo's ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST (Broadway), Strindberg's THE FATHER with Frank Langella (Broadway) and MISS JULIE (Yale Rep), Beaumarchais' THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO (the Guthrie and Broadway); Molière's DON JUAN, Ibsen's WILD DUCK and ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, Pirandello's ENRICO IV, Goldoni's IL CAMPIELLO, Erdmann's THE SUICIDE. With the esteemed translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, he was co-translated Chekhov's THE CHERRY ORCHARD, Gogol's THE INSPECTOR, Turgenev's A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY and Bulgakov's DON QUIXOTE. Films: Hyde Park on Hudson, staring Bill Murray and Laura Linney (Dir: Roger Michell), Ethan Frome, starring Liam Neeson (Dir: John Madden); Sensibility and Sense, staring Elaine Stritch and Jean Simmons (Dir: David Jones). Television: The End of a Sentence with Edward Herrmann (Dir: David Jones). Radio Plays include: HYDE PARK ON HUDSON, LANGUAGES SPOKEN HERE (Giles Cooper Award), EATING WORDS (Giles Cooper Award), ADVICE TO EASTERN EUROPE, AN AMERICAN WIFE (all BBC).
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
Originally produced at the Vaudeville Theatre in London with Macaulay Culkin and Irène Jacob
Subsequently presented at the Promenade Theatre in New York with Macaulay Culkin and Joely Richardson
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com