Tony Harrison has set his version exactly three hundred years after the first performance of Le Misanthrope in 1666. This transposition to the "reign" of Charles de Gaulle helps to clarify the truly human dilemmas in the play so often obscured behind the frills and stiffness of traditional productions. In this version of Le Misanthrope he uses the same skills and energy in a way that at once reminds us of the original and allows us, perhaps for the first time in any version of the play, to grasp its essential theme.