The Island of Slaves

After a shipwreck two men and two women (two master-servant pairs) find themselves on an island where runaway Greek slaves have established a new social order: the master must exchange roles with the servant, or else lose one’s head … These new relationships reveal the cruelty of their previous actions to the members of the ruling class, and the once-subjugated face the responsibility of power and the desire to be cruel, malicious, and revengeful. More than half a century before the French revolution Marivaux tried not to dramatise the thesis about equality with his “philosophical comedy”, but to charm and excite the audience. How do we see this experiment of his today, when the current crisis has resuscitated the notion of utopia?