Tartuffe

March 2019 

Tartuffe 

Tartuffe.  By Moliere, Adapted by John Donnelly, Directed by Blanche Mcintyre. National Theatre.  Feb. 2019. Lyttelton Theatre, London. 

A classic french farce reimagined for the twenty-first century, with just as much bite as it would have had for the religious leaders of France in the 1600’s, just redirected towards the modern upper class. 

This adaptation of Tartuffe told the same classic story: a wealthy father plans to marry his daughter off to Tartuffe - the hypocrite - but her step-mother and maid try to reveal Tartuffe true character before it’s too late. All of the same tropes are there, the same stock characters and the similar storyline, but this Tartuffe manages to tell a totally different story. Choosing to focus on the difference in wealth and social status of the characters, this version of Tartuffe puts into question who the hypocrite really is. Adultery is fine for a wealthy man going through a midlife crisis, but not for a homeless man living off of charity. Treason is perfectly acceptable as long as someone is friends with the Prime Minister. In other words, all sorts of evil are acceptable as long as social order is maintained. In this production, Tartuffe’s greatest crime is his desire to elevate himself to a higher social state, his audacity to think that he could have just as much access to wealth and privilege as the family that he infiltrated. When he is stopped at the end it is not the clear cut victory of the Moliere original. It flips the story on its head and makes the audience suddenly see that the family they have been rooting for the whole time may not be “good” and the foolish Tartuffe may not be so “bad” as they originally thought. Is justice really served only when social order is maintained? 

To me, this version of Tartuffe is an excellent example of honouring the past while looking to the future. John Donnelly chose to take a beloved French farce and make it relevant to twenty first century England. It had an important message for our time and revealed new ways to look at script adaptation.