Tartuffe revisited
So many people I respect, privately and online, have differed with me on my review of Tartuffe (closing this Saturday at the Malthouse) that I went along to a matinee today to check if I had been hallucinating. Or - a much more depressing possibility - to see if somehow my responses had been in bad faith.
To my relief, I enjoyed it just as much on a second viewing. It's wicked, vulgar, intelligent fun: a production that reminds you that Molière and company forged their success by simultaneously entertaining the unwashed commoners and the slightly less unwashed aristocracy. And I still think that it by no means traduces or reduces the play: all Molière's ideas, all his pointed social satire, are gloriously there.
As an aside, I watched it with a boisterous audience of school students, who laughed and clapped all the way through and at the end sounded as if they had been at a rock concert. Now, that's encouraging.
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As an aside, I watched it with a boisterous audience of school students, who laughed and clapped all the way through and at the end sounded as if they had been at a rock concert. Now, that's encouraging.
Hey, we weren't too bad. we kept quiet it was the other group in the backrow that wouldn't shut up.
i thought it was a wonderful version of tartuffe, i hear another theatre company is putting on "the hypocrite" later this year.
i loved Tartuffe and wished i could see it again.
Hughsie, I wasn't complaining - the reverse. It made watching the show more fun to be among an audience that was having such a good time.
what this version did is modernise a great show so that it would appeal to a younger audience, one that may not have ever been to a play before. It was one of the best plays i had ever seen and the people with me agreed. i loved the lighting and the sound effects, especially the phone scene
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