First performed in 1664, the play was immediately banned by Louis XIV, not because he was personally offended, but because of outrage by the Catholic church in France over the idea that someone who purports to be a holy man is in fact a lecherous charlatan - the very idea! A few years later, Molière rewrote it but that too was banned so he tinkered around with it again and when finally performed in 1669 the play was a success.
John Donnelly has pitched his version right into the London of today - his Tartuffe could easily have wandered off from Waterloo Bridge's climate change protesters - and in his final denouncement of the rich fools he has infiltrated, Tartuffe made some very topical jabs at their eternal hatred of the other, the imposter, the foreigner. In a huge North London living room, overshadowed by a gold full-size replica of Michelangelo's 'David', former politico Orgon has turned his family upside down by inviting into their home a scruffy, soap-dodger called Tartuffe who claims to be the leader of a new religion that can lead believers to the New Dawn.
This modern-day Rasputin has totally won over both Orgon and his mother Pernelle but Orgon's trophy wife Elmire and his spoilt children Damis and Marianne are less convinced and suspect Tartuffe to be leaching off them. Soon Tartuffe's equally squalid supporters are making a nest for themselves in the living room and Orgon has in a moment of spiritual weakness, given Tartuffe incriminating evidence that he committed crimes against the state "in the last ill-advised war".
When Elmire finally convinces Orgon that Tartuffe has been wanting to have sex with her all along, Orgon orders him out of his house. But Tartuffe returns with a bailiff called Loyal who instead hands the shocked Orgon a writ informing him that it's the family who must leave because Orgon gave Tartuffe the deeds to the house. Tartuffe is triumphant... but is he?
Blanche McIntyre's production played more like a farce with people popping out of hiding places and flying over the furniture so the darker elements of the characters was lost; in Donnelly's script they all had the depth of a Comic Strip special - sexy wife, yuppy daughter, rich fool, wily imposter - but it was only in the last moments that Molière's savage satire made itself really known which over-tipped the play. However there were more than enough laugh-out-loud lines and the main principals took you along with the freewheeling antics.
The really annoying thing I found about the production was a bad case of inaudibility among quite a few of the supporting members of the cast who could not throw their lines out into the auditorium - it might be more realistic to speak your lines directly to whoever you are in the scene with but it made for a lot of the mumbled lines as they were not also including the audience in - now a new breed of actors from smaller venues are appearing on the large National stages, they really need to be told how to play to the bigger houses.
No such problems with the central pairing: Broadway veteran Denis O'Hare was hugely charismatic as the imposter Tartuffe although the idea to have his character speak in a bizarre mash-up of Brazilian and/or French strangled some laugh lines unnecessarily; we know he is 'other' to Orgon's family there was really no need to do it, better he just played it in his natural US accent. He was very well-partnered by Kevin Doyle's Orgon, a man hoist by his ostentatious petard thanks to his own gullibility.
Susan Engel was at her imperious best as Pernelle and Olivia Williams was a shrewish Elmire, driven to screeching distraction at her husband's blind stupidity. Kitty Archer was good fun as the whiny, entitled Marianne and her lover, the Socialist Marxist poet Valere was played well by Geoffrey Lumb. I also wanted to highlight Matthew Duckett as the wide-boy Loyal who made an impression in a relatively small scene.
Robert Jones' huge elaborate set made me want to explore the rest of Orgon's house to see it it was as ghastly as that room and Toby Park gets a shout-out for his physical comedy routines.
I am glad I have finally seen TARTUFFE onstage - as I said it's done often so it was only a matter of time before seeing it - and while I enjoyed a lot of it and the performances, I suspect a less comedy-driven production might show why it has remained such a mainstay of our stages.
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