Theater Review - Top of the fops
The timing could be better for Theatre in the Square’s Tartuffe. During a major downturn in U.S./French foreign relations, the Marietta playhouse isn’t just doing a French classic, it’s doing it in a conspicuously French way. Director August Staub approximates how Moliere’s actual troupe would have presented Tartuffe at Louis XIV’s court in Versailles in 1664, calling for plenty of poodle wigs, fans, beauty marks and snuff boxes.
It’s not an exact historical re-creation, allowing for anachronistic humor like the homegirl “attitude” Marguerite Hannah occasionally injects into her lines as Dorine. Tartuffe himself (Alan Kilpatrick) is a timelessly detestable comic villain, a sham holy man who ingratiates himself into the household of noble Orgon (Allen O’Reilly).
For all of his shows of piety, Tartuffe is greedy, manipulative and as horny as Pepe Le Pew, taking every opportunity to pursue Orgon’s wife (Tess Malis Kincaid). In the role Kilpatrick sounds a kind of symphony of insincerity, especially when Orgon learns of his true behavior — and Tartuffe wins forgiveness by confessing to be an even bigger sinner than he actually is.
Moliere’s satiric point wasn’t just to skewer frauds but dupes like Orgon, but it’s always disappointing that Tartuffe doesn’t get more stage time: We seem to hear about how hypocritical he is more than we witness him in action. The production gives him several enjoyable foils, including Anthony Rodriguez as a fop who preaches moderation and Brik Berkes as a dashing suitor who hawks and spits when pronouncing the title role’s name: “Tarrr-tuffe!”
The ensemble proves very comfortable, at times subtly musical, with Ranjit Bolt’s rhymed translation and its nimble couplets. (Bolt’s verse trumps the recent Lysistrata Project, with its forced, sing-songy rhymes.)
Theatre in the Square’s Tartuffe is such a pleasingly airy trifle that its feet never seem to touch the ground, and one hopes audiences won’t reject it for being French. Perhaps the theater should take inspiration from the new name for French fries and bill Moliere as a “Freedom Playwright.”
Theatre in the Square presents Tartuffe through April 20. Tues.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 2:30 and 7 p.m. $17-$32. 11 Whitlock Ave., Marietta. 770-422-8369. <a href=http://”www.theatreinthesquare.com”target=”new”>www.theatreinthesquare.com.