The play differs from other farces of the time by employing dynamic characters like Alceste and Célimène as opposed to the flat caricatures of traditional social satire.

The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau claimed in his Letter to M. D'Alembert on Spectacles that it was Molière's best work, but hated that it made Alceste the butt of its humor.

Much to the horror of his friends and companions, Alceste rejects la politesse, the social conventions of the seventeenth-century French ruelles (later called salons in the 18th century).

The most recent production ran from August 12 - October 29, 2011, at the Festival Theatre using the Richard Wilbur translation; Ben Carlson starred as Alceste and Sara Topham as Celimene.

[9] Uma Thurman and Roger Rees starred in a run of this version for Classic Stage Company in New York in 1999 directed by Barry Edelstein.

[10] and it was revived by Thea Sharrock at the Comedy Theatre, London starring Damian Lewis and Keira Knightley in December 2009.

[11] Robert Cohen's 2006 translation into heroic couplets was praised by the Los Angeles Times as "highly entertaining... with a contemporary flavor full of colloquial yet literate pungency.

It is set in contemporary London, and most of the characters' names are recognisably linked to Molière's: in the sequence of the above cast list they are Alan, Celia, Phil, Eileen, Orville, Fay (Arsinoe), Lord Arne, Chris, and manservant Bates.

[15] In June 2014, Andy Clark, Rosalind Sydney and Helen MacKay appeared in a three-handed 50-minute Classic Cuts version of The Misanthrope, written in rhyming couplets by Frances Poet, set and performed in the basement theatre of Glasgow's Òran Mór.

The Scotsman noted 'the sheer, sharp-edged wit of Poet’s rhyming text, which pays perfect homage to the original, while diving boldly into the new world of fall-outs and friendships conducted on social media.'