Students rehearse “Tartuffe” in the Performing Arts Center.
Theatre students are learning from one of history’s masters of comedy as they prepare to stage Molière’s “Tartuffe.”
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Directed by Vladimir Rovinsky, the play features 17th century costumes designed by Carol Cooley, a set designed by David R. Borron and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Students will perform the play at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 1-5 and 2 p.m. Dec. 6 on the Performing Arts Center’s Center Stage.
Written in 1664, Molière’s classic comedy about a scheming imposter and the family he tries to ruin was considered so scandalous that the Archbishop of Paris threatened to excommunicate anyone who saw it.
It’s a story about a middle class family who invites a pious man “Tartuffe” to stay in their house. He soon completely takes over and seeks to establish strict, puritanical rules, which he doesn’t follow himself and the family has to convince the father, Orgon, of the man’s fraud.
“It is a brilliant example of the neo-classical comedy when the best traditions of comedy and theatre were reborn after antiquity when you laughed at things in society or people which you wanted to fix,” Rovinsky said.
The play maintains relevance for the 21st century in its depiction of lust, greed and religious hypocrisy.
The question of faith and what is trustworthy and what is pious behavior is timeless.
The 11 actors involved are performing the piece using period costumes. The women will wear corsets beneath their dresses and are learning the language of the fan in the hand. The men will wear high-heeled shoes and will walk with a classical ballet-like posture and perform elegant bows, Rovinsky said.
The actors are tasked with taking a superficial beauty and exposing the ugliness underneath within their characters. Every gesture and every word is performed with subtext until their characters’ nature comes out, he said.
Molière was inspired by Italian Commedia dell’arte and includes expressive, physical comedy routines and larger-than-life characters.
“It’s very funny,” Rovinsky said. “Sometimes it’s funnier than expected.”
