| Tartuffe | |
| Setting: | Orgon's house in Paris, 1660s |
| Premiere: | 1664 |
| Orig Lang: | French |
| Genre: | Comedy |
Tartuffe, or The Impostor, or The Hypocrite (;[1] French: Tartuffe, ou l'Imposteur, in French pronounced as /taʁtyf u lɛ̃pɔstœʁ/), first performed in 1664, is a theatrical comedy by Molière. The characters of Tartuffe, Elmire, and Orgon are considered among the greatest classical theatre roles.
Molière performed his first version of Tartuffe in 1664. Almost immediately following its performance that same year at Versailles' grand fêtes (The Party of the Delights of the Enchanted Island/Les fêtes des plaisirs de l'ile enchantée), King Louis XIV suppressed it, probably under the influence of the archbishop of Paris, Paul Philippe Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe, the King's confessor and former tutor. While the king had little personal interest in suppressing the play, he did so because, as stated in the official account of the fête:
although it was found to be extremely diverting, the king recognized so much conformity between those that a true devotion leads on the path to heaven and those that a vain ostentation of some good works does not prevent from committing some bad ones, that his extreme delicacy to religious matters can not suffer this resemblance of vice to virtue, which could be mistaken for each other; although one does not doubt the good intentions of the author, even so he forbids it in public, and deprived himself of this pleasure, in order not to allow it to be abused by others, less capable of making a just discernment of it.
As a result of Molière's play, contemporary French and English both use the word "tartuffe" to designate a hypocrite who ostensibly and exaggeratedly feigns virtue, especially religious virtue. The play is written entirely in twelve-syllable lines (alexandrines) of rhyming couplets—1,962 lines total.[2]
| Character | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Orgon: Molière | Head of the house and husband of Elmire, he is blinded by admiration for Tartuffe. | |
| Tartuffe: Du Croisy | Houseguest of Orgon, hypocritical religious devotee who attempts to seduce Elmire | |
| Valère: La Grange | The young romantic lead, who struggles to win the hand of his true love, Orgon's daughter Mariane. | |
| Madame Pernelle: Louis Béjart, cross-dressed | Mother of Orgon; grandmother of Damis and Mariane | |
| Elmire: Armande Béjart-Molière | Wife of Orgon, step-mother of Damis and Mariane | |
| Dorine: Madeleine Béjart | Family housemaid (suivante), who tries to help expose Tartuffe and help Valère and Mariane. | |
| Cléante: La Thorillière | Brother of Elmire, brother-in-law of Orgon (the play's raisonneur) | |
| Mariane: Mlle de Brie | Daughter of Orgon, the fiancée of Valère and sister of Damis | |
| Damis: André Hubert | Son of Orgon and brother of Mariane | |
| Laurent | Servant of Tartuffe (non-speaking character) | |
| Argas | Friend of Orgon who was anti-Louis XIV during the Fronde (mentioned but not seen). | |
| Flipote | Servant of Madame Pernelle (non-speaking character) | |
| Monsieur Loyal: Mr. De Brie | A bailiff | |
| A King's Officer/The Exempt | An officer of the king |
Orgon's family is up in arms because Orgon and his mother have fallen under the influence of Tartuffe, a pious fraud (and a vagrant prior to Orgon's help). Tartuffe pretends to be pious and to speak with divine authority, and Orgon and his mother no longer take any action without first consulting him.
Tartuffe's antics do not fool the rest of the family or their friends; they detest him. Orgon raises the stakes when he announces that Tartuffe will marry Orgon's daughter Mariane (who is already engaged to Valère). Mariane becomes very upset at this news, and the rest of the family realizes how deeply Tartuffe has embedded himself into the family.
In an effort to show Orgon how awful Tartuffe really is, the family devises a scheme to trap Tartuffe into confessing to Elmire (Orgon's wife) his desire for her. As a pious man and a guest, he should have no such feelings for the lady of the house, and the family hopes that after such a confession, Orgon will throw Tartuffe out of the house. Indeed, Tartuffe does try to seduce Elmire, but their interview is interrupted when Orgon's son Damis, who has been eavesdropping, is no longer able to control his boiling indignation and jumps out of his hiding place to denounce Tartuffe.
Tartuffe is at first shocked but recovers very well. When Orgon enters the room and Damis triumphantly tells him what happened, Tartuffe uses reverse psychology and accuses himself of being the worst sinner:
Yes, my brother, I am wicked, guilty.A miserable sinner just full of iniquity.[3]
Orgon is convinced that Damis was lying and banishes him from the house. Tartuffe even convinces Orgon to order that, to teach Damis a lesson, Tartuffe should be around Elmire more than ever. As a gift to Tartuffe and further punishment to Damis and the rest of his family, Orgon signs over all his worldly possessions to Tartuffe.
In a later scene, Elmire challenges Orgon to be witness to a meeting between her and Tartuffe. Orgon, ever easily convinced, decides to hide under a table in the same room, confident that Elmire is wrong. He overhears Elmire resisting Tartuffe's very forward advances. When Tartuffe has incriminated himself definitively and is dangerously close to violating Elmire, Orgon comes out from under the table and orders Tartuffe out of his house. The wily guest means to stay, and Tartuffe finally shows his hand. It turns out that earlier, before the events of the play, Orgon had admitted to Tartuffe that he had possession of a box of incriminating letters (written by a friend, not by him). Tartuffe had taken charge and possession of this box, and now tells Orgon that he (Orgon) will be the one to leave. Tartuffe takes his temporary leave. Orgon's family tries to decide what to do. Very soon, Monsieur Loyal shows up with a message from Tartuffe and the court itself; they must exit the house because it now belongs to Tartuffe. Dorine makes fun of Monsieur Loyal's name, mocking his fake loyalty. Even Madame Pernelle, who had refused to believe any ill about Tartuffe even in the face of her son's actually witnessing it, has become convinced of Tartuffe's duplicity.
No sooner does Monsieur Loyal leave than Valère rushes in with the news that Tartuffe has denounced Orgon for aiding and assisting a traitor by keeping the incriminating letters and that Orgon is about to be arrested. Before Orgon can flee, Tartuffe arrives with an officer, but to his surprise, the officer arrests him instead. The officer explains that the enlightened King Louis XIV—who is not mentioned by name—has heard of the injustices happening in the house and, appalled by Tartuffe's treachery towards Orgon, has ordered Tartuffe's arrest instead.
It is revealed that Tartuffe has a long criminal history and has often changed his name to avoid being caught. As a reward for Orgon's previous good services, the king not only forgives him for keeping the letters but also invalidates the deed that gave Tartuffe possession of Orgon's house and possessions. The entire family is thankful that it has escaped the mortification of both Orgon's potential disgrace and their dispossession.
The drama ends well, and Orgon announces the upcoming wedding of Valère and Mariane. The surprise twist ending, in which everything is set right by the unexpected benevolent intervention of the heretofore unseen king, is considered a notable modern-day example of the classical theatrical plot device deus ex machina.
Though Tartuffe was received well by the public and even by Louis XIV, it immediately sparked conflict amongst many different groups who were offended by the play's portrayal of someone who was outwardly pious but fundamentally mercenary, lecherous, and deceitful; and who uses their profession of piety to prey on others. The factions opposed to Molière's work included part of the hierarchy of the French Roman Catholic Church, members of upper-class French society, and the illegal underground organization called the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement. Tartuffes popularity was cut short when the archbishop of Paris Péréfixe issued an edict threatening excommunication for anyone who watched, performed in, or read the play. Molière attempted to assuage church officials by rewriting his play to seem more secular and less critical of religion, but the archbishop and other leading officials would not budge. The revised, second version of the play was called L'Imposteur and had a main character named Panulphe instead of Tartuffe, the only performance of which occurred in the Palais-Royal theatre on 5 August 1667. Immediately the following day, on 6 August, as the king was away from Paris, Guillaume de Lamoignon, first president of the Paris Parlement, censored public performances.[4]
Even throughout Molière's conflict with the church, Louis XIV continued to support the playwright; it is possible that without the King's support, Molière might have been excommunicated. Although public performances of the play were banned, private performances for the French aristocracy did occur.[5] In 1669, after Molière's detractors lost much of their influence, he was finally allowed to perform the final version of his play. However, due to all the controversy surrounding Tartuffe, Molière mostly refrained from writing such incisive plays as this one again.[6]
An ally of Molière (believed by Robert McBride to be François de La Mothe Le Vayer, but a hotly-debated point)[7] [8] responded to criticism of Tartuffe in 1667 with a Lettre sur la comédie de l'Imposteur. The anonymous author sought to defend the play to the public by describing the plot in detail and then rebutting two common arguments made for why the play was banned. The first being that theatrical works should not discuss religion at all; the second being that Tartuffe's actions on stage, followed by his pious speech, would make the audience think that they were to act as Tartuffe did. This section of letter contradicts the latter by describing how Tartuffe's actions are worthy of ridicule, in essence comic, and therefore by no means an endorsement.
Centuries later, when the satirical anticlerical magazine La Calotte started publication in 1906, its first editorial asserted that Laughter is the only weapon feared by the soldiers of Tartuffe; the new magazine proposed to effectively deploy that weapon, with articles and cartoons mercilessly lampooning the Catholic Church and its clergy.[9] [10] [11]
The original version of the play was in three acts and was first staged on 12 May 1664 at the Palace of Versailles' Cour de Marbre[12] as part of festivities known as Les Plaisirs de l'île enchantée. Because of the attacks on the play and the ban that was placed on it, this version was never published, and no text has survived, giving rise to much speculation as to whether it was a work in progress or a finished piece. Many writers believe it consisted of the first three acts of the final version, while John Cairncross has proposed that acts 1, 3, and 4 were performed.[13] Although the original version could not be played publicly, it could be given privately,[13] and it was seen on 25 September 1664 in Villers-Cotterêts, for Louis' brother Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, aka Monsieur and 29 November 1664 at the Château du Raincy, for the veteran of the Fronde, Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti.[14]
The second version, L'Imposteur, was in five acts and performed only once, on 5 August 1667 in the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. On 11 August, before any additional performances, the Archbishop of Paris Péréfixe banned this version also. The largely-final, revised third version in five acts, under the title Tartuffe, ou L'Imposteur, appeared on 5 February 1669 at the Palais-Royal theatre and was highly successful.[13] This version was published[15] and is the one that is generally performed today.[13]
Since Molière's time, Tartuffe has stayed on the repertoire of the Comédie-Française, where it is its most performed play.
The Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski was working on a production of Tartuffe when he died in 1938. It was completed by Mikhail Kedrov and opened on 4 December 1939.[16]
The first Broadway production took place at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre in New York and ran from 14 January 1965 to 22 May 1965. The cast included Michael O'Sullivan as Tartuffe, Sada Thompson as Dorine, Salome Jens as Elmire, Hal Holbrook as M. Loyal, John Phillip Law as King's Officer, Laurence Luckinbill as Damis and Tony Lo Bianco as Sergeant.[17]
The National Theatre Company performed a production in 1967 using the Richard Wilbur translation and featuring John Gielgud as Orgon, Robert Stephens as Tartuffe, Jeremy Brett as Valere, Derek Jacobi as The Officer and Joan Plowright as Dorine.[18]
A production of Richard Wilbur's translation of the play opened at the Circle in the Square Theatre in 1977, with John Wood as Tartuffe, and co-starring Tammy Grimes as Elmire, Stefan Gierasch as Orgon, Ray Wise as Damis, Swoosie Kurtz as Mariane and Patricia Elliott as Dorine.[19]
A Royal Shakespeare Company production using the Christopher Hampton translation and directed by Bill Alexander was performed at The Pit Theatre in London in 1983. The production included Antony Sher as Tartuffe, Nigel Hawthorne as Orgon, Mark Rylance as Damis, Alison Steadman as Elmire, Stephanie Fayerman as Dorine and David Bradley as Cleante.[20]
Charles Randolph-Wright staged a production of Tartuffe, July 1999, at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, which was set among affluent African Americans of Durham, North Carolina, in the 1950s.[21]
A translation by Ranjit Bolt was staged at London's Playhouse Theatre in 1991 with Abigail Cruttenden, Paul Eddington, Jamie Glover, Felicity Kendal, Nicholas Le Prevost, John Sessions and Toby Stephens.[22] Bolt's translation was later staged at London's National Theatre in 2002 with Margaret Tyzack as Madame Pernelle, Martin Clunes as Tartuffe, Clare Holman as Elmire, Julian Wadham as Cleante and David Threlfall as Orgon.[23]
David Ball adapted Tartuffe for the Theatre de la Jeune Lune in 2006 and Dominique Serrand revived this production in 2015 in a coproduction with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory and the Shakespeare Theatre Company.[24]
Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough's translation premièred at the Liverpool Playhouse in May 2008 and transferred subsequently to the Rose Theatre, Kingston.[25]
The Royal Shakespeare Company produced a new version by Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto which relocated the story to the modern-day Pakistani-Muslim community of Sparkhill, Birmingham. It premiered at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon in September 2018 before transferring to Birmingham Repertory Theatre in October 2022.[26]
In 2021, Singapore theatre company W!ld Rice commissioned a new version by Singaporean playwright Joel Tan, which premiered in 2022. Tan's version adds a new plot twist: Valère's engagement to Mariane is a lavender marriage to cover up his torrid affair with Damis and her desire to become an independent woman.
In 2022, a feminist reimagining written by Flora Davies and Siân Lawrence was presented at Oxford's BT Studio by Green Sun Productions to great acclaim. This adaptation sets the action within a fictional feminist consultancy firm; Orgon and Elmire become Co-CEOs and Tartuffe a new hire in the office. The production transferred to the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2023.