Penn State Theatre’s production of Moliere’s Tartuffe, directed by Sam Osheroff, was an exceptional modern re-imagining of a play that has some antiquated feeling elements but overall remains exceedingly relevant to the world of 2024. On the one hand, Tartuffe’s rhymed lines and aristocratic subject matter feel very old. On the other, the theme of a conman preying/praying on the devout to build a cult-like following is very timely.
The basic storyline of Moliere’s play is that Orgon, a nobleman, has taken into his house Tartuffe, a man who pretends to be exceedingly devout, but who actually uses this apparent religiosity to trick Orgon into supporting his lifestyle and allow Tartuffe access to Elmire, Orgon’s wife, whom Tartuffe wishes to seduce. The rest of Orgon’s family (apart from his mother) sees Tartuffe for what he is and attempts to open Orgon’s eyes to the deception. However, Orgon rejects their insights, instead preferring his faith in Tartuffe. Even when Damis, Orgon’s son and heir, reports having witnessed Tartuffe trying to seduce Elmire, Orgon sides with Tartuffe when the latter excessively blames himself as a sinner. As all this is happening, Orgon breaks the promised match between his daughter Mariane and her beloved Valere, much to the chagrin of the entire family, and tries to force her to marry Tartuffe. It is only when Elmire persuades Orgon to hide and observe Tartuffe’s behavior for himself that his eyes are opened. However, by this point, Orgon has already signed over the deed to his house, and he has given Tartuffe a box of evidence incriminating Orgon’s friend who betrayed the king, and which Orgon was illegally keeping safe. So, Tartuffe claims the house and tries to evict the family, even bringing along an officer of the king to arrest Orgon. However, the officer instead arrests Tartuffe himself, explaining that the king saw through his deception and identified the criminal as a recurring conman who has run similar scams under a variety of names.
The first thing I’ll address—because it’s the most visually striking—is the costuming for the Penn State production, done by Hilary Hayes. Initially, I was not a huge fan of the costuming, which seemed inspired by Dr. Seuss. The aristocratic characters all had bright color palettes: Damis in sky blue, Valere in sea foam green, Mariane in pink, Elmire in purple, and Orgon in gold. And when I say color palettes, I mean full on in those colors. Damis had a blue mop top wig, a puffy blue faux fur coat, a blue shirt cut to at angles, blue trousers, and blue loafers. Valere had a sea foam green mop top wig, a sea foam green shirt with excessively frilly sleeves that often comically engulfed his hands, sea foam green trousers, and sparkly green loafers. The only other color he had was a pink belt, which visually aligned him with his beloved Mariane, who was all in pink except for a green ornament in her hair. Mariane’s pink cocktail dress was supplemented with a giant pink bow, attached at her stomach and back, which the actress regularly put her arms down into and then wrapped around herself to hide from bad news. At first, I found the excess of the color schemes and the absurd opulence of the costumes off-putting, but as the show progressed they grew on me. And upon reflection, I realized how brilliant the costuming actually was because it visually aligned the aristocratic characters with the excesses of the ancien regime, in contrast to Tartuffe whose blue suit, red tie, flag pin and comically oversized rosary visually aligned him with televangelists and other charlatans who use religion to bamboozle and extort their followers.
As far as the performances go, they were exceptionally good. Every actor was excellent—I wouldn’t say there was a weak link anywhere in the chain as far as acting goes. In particular, several performers were simply excellent at facial expressions. Kate Diuguid (Mariane), for instance, often provoked bursts of audible laughter from the audience just through changes to her facial expressions. In one instance, she sat with Orgon (Korey Grecek) upstage on the stairs (visible in the picture) and when he told her that she was to wed Tartuffe, Diuguid’s face dropped from a kind of bland happiness to a stunned disbelief and terror—and she made that change so visibly that everyone in the audience, even those in the back rows of the downstage seating areas, could clearly tell what had just happened to the character. Signally that kind of change just through a facial expression, and doing it well enough that the comic effect stands out for an audience is incredibly difficult.
Another actor who had to rely on his face was Joshua David Gunning, playing Tartuffe’s servant Laurent. Laurent is interesting because he has no lines in the Richard Wilbur translation Penn State performed, and yet he’s frequently on stage when Tartuffe is. While some performers might have given a very bland Laurent, largely just standing in the background unobtrusively, Gunning actually brought the character to life through his wolfish grins and glares. I felt like I knew what this Laurent was thinking at all times because of how Gunning held himself, his facial expressions, and how he seemed to stalk the action at all times.
The other actor I really enjoyed was Jimmy Hunter, playing Elmire’s free-thinking brother Cléante. It’s hard to identify exactly what about their performance was so good, but every time Hunter was on stage, my eye was drawn to them.
My one critique of the performance itself comes at the end of the show, when the king’s officer (Asim Baraka) arrests Tartuffe (Logan Glaze) and explains how the king saw through the conman’s crime. During this explanation—which justifies the deus ex machine ending—one of the servants (Teagan Jai Boyd) brought on a picture of the king—in this case a not entirely flattering picture of Elon Musk with a crown photoshopped on. This created an uproar, between the audience’s burst of laughter and the actors weeping and praising their beloved king. And this uproar drowned out the king’s officer’s explanation, meaning the audience couldn’t hear large portions of it. Since this does explain the conclusion to the play, it kind of matters whether we actually hear it. It would have been easier to follow if the actors were quieter in their adoration and if a pause had been left for the audience’s laughter before launching into the explanation.