Where I Offer Molière a Few Notes

Tartuffe by Molière
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Though there are a number of things about this play that I don't appreciate and don't much enjoy, there is enough to like that, even from a 21st Century English-speaking American perspective, I can give a modest nod to Tartuffe and say "Pretty entertaining."

In terms of construction, emerging as it does from its own history and tradition, it has a different organization and approach than I am used to. It's got 5 acts broken into scenes, so that's pretty much the norm, but it doesn't feel like 5 acts; it feels like one long scene. The play takes place all in the same place, the home of the family unfortunate enough to open their doors to the scammer, Tartuffe, and over a very short time. On the page, that comes off as bland, lacking in imagination, but I can't answer for the play as staged. Maybe it works.

Another format kind of issue is the annoying back-and-forth of the dialogue. It didn't resonate with me, and I had to work to try to fit it into my understanding of the work as a whole. Much of the dialogue found throughout, in scene after scene, is simple argument, with the same points repeated again and again in almost identical language. It read as if a rough draft had been left unedited, so much so that I wondered if it was truly a stylistic choice intentionally made (which is the default assumption when reading classics of world literature). The maid especially, arguing with Orgon, the head of the house, says nearly the same thing multiple times. (In much the same way that TV characters hang up without saying goodbye, you seldom find them repeating an argument. There isn't enough time for that, and it would sound weird.) However, considering that this is coming out of a tradition rich with homegrown farce and the broad slapstick of Italian Commedia dell'arte, the angry, snappy, in-your-face dialogue makes more sense. If I could see an audience laughing red in the face with the Dorine's effrontery, I expect it would make more sense than it did on the page. (I assume they laugh. I hope.)

The plot is terribly straightforward. It's all about the family hating having Tartuffe live with them while the father loves him. Every scene is about that central idea, and it's that single-mindedness that makes it feel like a long one-act play. Hiding a friend's subversive materials for him emerges very near the end as a bit of secondary plot, but it would have been so much better to introduce that near the beginning and make a little more of it, IMO.

And so on. The play didn't match my expectations. But it did some things I like.

For one, it pokes religious bigots and hyper-devout hypocrites in the eye. That's good. It got Molière in trouble--a lot of trouble--with religious authorities, and anything that upsets them is good in my book. Too bad we didn't continue down that road.

Also, I liked the ending. The scene with Orgon hiding to eavesdrop on the foolish Tartuffe trying to seduce his wife would make good comedy, I'm sure. And though I didn't love that the problems are solved off-stage by the king, I liked that the bad guy got caught and the good guys (the family, the daughter and her betrothed) all reconciled. A better version of this story (again, IMO) has someone, maybe the maid, producing evidence that convinces the king what was happening, or maybe something is done with the hidden materials that Tartuffe stole--frame him for the damning documents?--but I understand Molière was working with his audience's expectations, not mine. So bummer for me.

Kudos for annoying the religious extremists of his day, and fair play to Dorine, who showed no deference to her bosses at all. Class solidarity.

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