Tartuffe

July 2017

Tartuffe 

Molière. Tartuffe. Misanthrope and Tartuffe. Translated by Richard Wilbur, Harcourt, 1965.

What do you get when you combine classical Commedia dell’arte characters with the rigid neoclassical play structure and infuse it with just a touch social critique? You get a hilariously entertaining play that can still resonate with audiences 350 years after it was written.  Tartuffe tells the story of an upper middle-class family-man who has been utterly duped by the hypocritical con-man Tartuffe. He is so taken in that he has promised Tartuffe his daughter’s hand in marriage and goes so far as signing his estate over to the falsely pious man. His family tries to convince him of Tartuffe’s true nature and at the end of the day, the wise king saves them all. When it was written, Tartuffe challenged the religious hypocrisy that was rampant in France, and speaks of the difference between outward religion and true inner goodness.