This is because during an existential crisis Orgon found dodgy guru Tartuffe (Denis O’Hare) in a café and decided he was the man to steer his spiritual life; he installed him in his house and told his family to follow his teachings.
Not that Tartuffe actually has any teachings; he spends his time making vague gestures towards prayer or meditation, throwing together half-understood aspects of several religions and insinuating himself into the household – he refuses cash but is happy to take all the free food and shelter, while his intentions towards Elmire are obvious from miles away, to everyone but Orgon. It’s actually Orgon, worried that his dodgy past is about to be exposed in the press, who’s become dependent on Tartuffe and coming up with wild schemes to keep him around (and to move his money to someone else’s name where it can’t be seized if the police come calling.) The main of these schemes is to demand his daughter marry Tartuffe or be disinherited; a plot that sees Mariane, Damis and Elmire all abandon him.
Molière actually keeps his title character off the stage for the first hour, although McIntyre’s production introduces O’Hare earlier by having him wander around the stalls flirting with the audience and throwing flowers around before the show starts. The production actually starts with a bang as the characters recover from a wild party in Orgon’s absence and there’s a lot of good, silly jokes to open the show with; before things slow down considerably on his return, and we’re left with the least dynamic character giving us half an hour of exposition. It’s a start that’s typical of the production as a whole: The jokes and ridiculous situations are great, but there’s not enough of them and they feel stretched over the two-and-a-half hours.
Most of the actors happily ham things up and bring energy to the stage – none more so than Geoffrey Lumb as Mariane’s overdramatic, hipster poet boyfriend Valere, who occasionally bursts into the room to complain about the latest development in their relationship he’s only found out about through Instagram. Archer does a good job balancing Mariane’s uselessness with her perfectly understanding her own uselessness, FDOW has a lot of fun as Elmire tries to entrap Tartuffe, and Okoronkwo makes his brief appearances as the dim Damis count. Kathy Kiera Clarke is great in the tricky role of straight woman to all this madness as housekeeper Dorine.
Obviously all eyes are on O’Hare as Tartuffe himself, and he manages both the trickster and the ambiguity that Donnelly’s version of the story demands of him – it seems he’s a down-and-out who’s never actually claimed to be any kind of religious leader, but like everything else it’s Orgon who’s put that title on him, and he’s happy to play up to it for food and shelter. I don’t know if the vague Eastern European accent he sports can be put down to O’Hare not quite nailing whatever accent he’s aiming for: Like everything else with the character it’s hard to know whether we’re even meant to believe it’s genuine.
McIntyre’s production is pretty broad but it worked for me; after all it’s a pretty silly story and, where Molière’s concerned, I’d much rather everyone dialled up the silliness than the smugness I’ve too often seen with actors delivering smartarse updates to the centuries-old lines. In fact, as the ending ramps up the political commentary and takes a surreal turn to deliver its moral, Donnelly’s text suddenly turns to rhyming couplets, and I took that in part to be a reminder that the audience could have been subjected to that nonsense for the entire show but were spared it. OH GOD can you imagine the smug gurning at Valere’s line about not liking rhyme if the whole text had been in couplets, thanks for nixing that, McIntyre and team.
As well as the final message about inequality and corruption Donnelly’s translation seamlessly finds the inevitable Brexit metaphor in there as well, as Orgon’s obsessive crusade and betrayal of his children comes not from any real attempt at religious fulfilment but from a hope of recapturing an imagined past. Not that the politics and social commentary overwhelm the comedy; I still think this would have been infinitely better with half an hour less of everything crashing to a halt while they try to explain the plot, a streamlining which could have made this a real comedy hit. As it is, the gags don’t come as thick and fast as they should but when they do they really land.
Tartuffe, the Imposter by Molière in a version by John Donnelly is booking in repertory until the 30th of April at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton.
Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.
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