“Click, tap – fuck that!” Thus is Molière’s 1666 satirical comedy about conformity, inauthenticity and shameless self-promotion in the court of Louis XVI updated for 2026 sensibilities. In this gender-flipped version, reimagined once again by veteran playwright Martin Crimp (whose first revision of The Misanthrope graced the London stage in 1996), the opulence and artifice of Versailles has become the all-consuming maw of an internet that moulds us all into narcissistic hypocrites. The hero-turned-heroine is the genius but embittered writer Alice who refuses to play along, brought to life by the arched eyebrows of Sandra Oh making her National Theatre debut to crowds of adoring Killing Eve fans.
What is Alice so angry about? Patriarchy, poverty, toxic masculinity, and the fact her gay best friend John (the sensational Paul Chahidi) won’t bluntly tell a woman who’s just embraced him he has no idea who she is. She’s about to be cancelled for telling it like it is to nepo baby Esmée (Imogen Elliott, dressed in the Gen Z uniform of statement socks), yet delusionally in love with charming but shallow playboy Stefan (Tom Mison), whose affectations are perhaps so baked in she cannot see it.
But let’s not get too mired in the plot (which, to be clear, goes nowhere). For Crimp, as for Molière, that’s not the point. This is a character study in moral ambiguity. Are we meant to laugh at Alice, with her sanctimony and disdain of anyone (read: everyone) who fails to meet her impossibly principled standards? Or are we meant to admire her, as Rousseau admired the original Alceste, for striving for a type of virtue the rest of us can’t even recognise let alone attempt? Our sympathies, if not our emotions, switch constantly. The ethical bait-and-switch is matched by Crimp’s meanderingly rhyming couplets, one moment so naturalistic you’d forget the dialogue is in verse, the next clanging to the point of comedy – “Alice” paired with chalice, malice, Paris. Yes it’s heavy-handed at times, but knowingly so. This is a play about artifice, remember.
As for Oh, The Misanthrope is not an easy play for an actor beloved for gritty TV thrillers. There is no real jeopardy, and not much of an emotional arc. But it’s a different kind of challenge to carry one-and-three-quarter hours of non-stop witticisms without letting the energy sag, and at this she triumphs. The cast and indeed the script are overshadowed only by the 20 glittering chandeliers that transform Robert Jones’s set from a swanky hotel to ersatz Versailles in the play’s somewhat non-sensical denouement. Don’t expect any flashes of moral clarity – this play isn’t a lecture. It’s an invitation to think. And maybe stop clicking for an hour or two.
The Misanthrope is at the National Theatre, London SE1, until 1 August
[Further reading: Glengarry Glen Ross is pulling its punches]
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