THEATER REVIEW: TARTUFFE

A scene from Tartuffe.

French fried

By Ed Rampell

In this laugh-a-minute revival, Tartuffe gets the full Actors’ Gang and David Ball vaudevillean and slapstick treatment. One half expects a thespian to cry out: “Hey MO-liere!” or “pick two fingers” from the stage, as the French Shakespeare is channeled through the Trois Stooges and Marx Freres. Director Jon Kellam’s misanthropic mise-en-scene demolishes the sacrosanct notion of theatre’s “fourth wall” and the proscenium arch, as actors archly, directly address the audience and run around the entire playhouse like whirling dervishes crossed by the Flying Wallendas. For good measure, those Commedia dell’ Arte masks that the Gang’s artistic director, Tim Robbins, so adores adorns the punims of a couple of the players, while whiteface makeup is applied to the faces of other cast members. As the slide whistles sound, one could say: “The Gang’s all here.”

The devil-may-care troupe’s high voltage frenetic rendering of Moliere’s comic mess-terpiece is mostly good fun, and the players are anything but miserly when it comes to the yuks. But beneath the farcical façade is a serious message about religion that comes hard on the heels of the Gang’s April 5 "Satiristas" spoof lampooning traditional and fringe religions. In 1664 Tartuffe was considered to be so sacrilegious and scandalous it was banned, but the playwright’s razor sharp viewpoint remains as relevant today as it did in 17^th  century France. The eponymous Tartuffe (Pierre Adeli) is a guru who beguiles the wealthy, older Orgon (a masked P. Adam Walsh) and his elderly mother Madame Pernelle (Mary Eileen O’Donnell). They are spellbound by Tartuffe’s mumbo jumbo and piety, and Tartuffe’s religious reign over the household is enforced by his servant/spy Laurant (Gang stalwart Steven M. Porter, who also plays Loyal), a character more “Eavesdropping” Laurant than Yves St. Laurent.

However, the holy man turns out to be a pious poseur, a Freudian fraud who has lechery and larceny in his heart. Tartuffe conspires to seduce Orgon’s younger wife, Elmire (Vanessa Mizzone), and to rip off his posh castle, moat and all. Holy chateau!

Tartuffe’s religious hypocrisy will remind modern audiences of televangelist scam artists such as Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggert and more recently, Ted Haggard. Moliere’s suppressed Tartuffe finally saw the light of day and of the footlights in 1667, but a third of a millennium later, bedazzled holy rollers are still hoodwinked and bamboozled by preachers who turn out to be imposters. (Moliere’s play is alternatively entitled L’Imposteur, and gullible zealots eternally remain horse’s posteriors in the face of the promise of eternal life and all that opiate-of-the-masses razzmatazz.)

The well directed large, ensemble cast performs with much panache and tomfoolery. Standouts include Jeremie Locka, who plays the smitten suitor of Orgon’s daughter, Marianne (the delightfully delirious Hannah Chodos), like a cross between Steven Tyler and Mick Jagger, with all the glitz, glamour, ardor and moves of a 17^th century continental rock star. Sabra Williams provides mirth and eye candy as the housemaid Dorine, making ticket buyers grateful for those low-cut French fashions of the sizzling 1660s. As in subsequent productions by the French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart about a certain Figaro, Sabra’s sparkling, spunky servant speaks volumes, if comically (and in a British accent), about the era’s class struggle.

This production is a revival of the Gang’s Kellam-directed 2005 version of Tartuffe, based on the adaptation by David Ball, which is arguably true to the spirit, if not the letter, of Moliere’s original. The sound effects and music by Jef Bek – who wears a cross between a Harpo hairpiece, fright wig and The Donald’s coiffure as he tickles the ivory – adds to the buffoonery. However, the same sounds and other effects are used repeatedly during the 75 or so minute first act, rendering about 10 or 15 minutes of it a bit tedious, due to this redundancy. But the around hour-long second act zips along faster than a speeding bullet at a dizzying pace, making this Tartuffe irresistible for those who delight in onstage drollery (and picking on the French).  

Tartuffe runs through April 30 at the Actors’ Gang at the Ivy Substation theatre, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. For more info: 310/838-GANG; www.theactorsgang.com