tartuffe

Tartuffe is one of those villains who must be played melodramatically, where every movement and speech of his drips with shallowness and hypocrisy. If Tartuffe is played this way, the audience will quickly learn to hate and scorn him as much as the other characters do. But to turn the textual Tartuffe into an onstage rogue requires special care on the part of whoever plays Tartuffe, the director, the sound and lighting guys, the costume designer, the technical director, and everyone backstage. If all of these groups work together, Tartuffe’s stage time will make Tartuffe a success.

Before each part of the theater can begin work on dehumanizing Tartuffe, everyone involved must understand why a company would go to such great lengths to make Tartuffe more evil. Tartuffe was first read in 1665 to King Louis XIV of France. The church and the monarchy were very connected, and both had absolute power over all of France. To criticize one was to criticize the other, and that meant shame an...