In this Freshman Seminar, we’ll undertake a kind of “reading performance” of two astoundingly successful French theatrical comedies about friendship and misanthropy, one classic (Molière’s Le Misanthrope [1665]) and one modern (Yasmina Reza’s «Art» [1994]). Rather than discuss or analyze the plays as aesthetic objects, our weekly work will be structured around a “table” performance of them, with the idea being that approaching them practically, from the inside, is a great way to understand and enjoy them. We won’t be “acting” in the sense of using the space of a stage to physically perform from memory. Rather, reading the text before us, our attention to diction, pacing, tone, and accentuation will help us imaginatively bring the characters to life through almost entirely verbal means. This is a great chance to keep up and improve your high school French, to learn something about how the genre of comedy works, and to encounter two great plays. The class itself will be run in English, but reading-performing the texts requires either two years of high school of French, or the completion of French 2 at Berkeley. Students with less experience than this should contact the instructor before enrolling.