Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography
Presented by Hub Theatre Company of Boston
By Moliere
Translated by Richard Wilbur
Director – Bryn Boice
Sound Design – Mackenzie Adamick
Set Design – Justin Lahue
Costume Design – Marissa Wolf
Lighting Design/ME – Nars Kelliher
Props Designer – Julia Wonkka
Featuring: Steve Auger, Lily Ayotte, Jeremy Beazlie, Patrick Vincent Curran, Lauren Elias, June Kfoury, Brendan O’Neill, Brooks Reeves, Laura Rocklyn, Kayla Sessoms, Robert Thorpe
Nov. 9 – Nov. 24, 2024
Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116
Critique by Kitty Drexel
Two hours with one intermission
Appropriate for ages 13+
BOSTON — Hub Theatre Company’s Tartuffe is fun. It’s one of the better adaptations of Moliere’s play you’ll see in the next four years. No doubt, we will see quite a few performances of Tartuffe and other satires in the next four+ years. It’s better seeing satiric buffoonery on the stage now rather than the unfunny buffoonery we’ll see play out on the political stage coming this January.
Faux spiritual guide and life coach Tartuffe (Jeremy Beazlie) and his manservant Laurent (Steve Auger) are running a long con on the resident wealthy patriarch Orgon (Brooks Reeves). Tartuffe wants to scam the Orgon’s household out of its land and estate in Humility’s name. Fortunately for Orgon, the ladies of the house see through Tartuffe’s lies. Dorine (Lauren Elias), Lady Elmire (Laura Rocklyn), and Lady Mariane (Lily Ayotte) perceptively evade Tartuffe’s conniving plans while their male counterparts Damis (Patrick Curran), Cléante (Brendan O’Neill) and the sweet boy next door Valère (Robert Thorp) scramble for ideas. Together they vow to reveal his ruse and beat Tartuffe at his own game. June Kfoury plays their grand matriarch, Madame Pernell. Kayla Sessoms completes the cast as Flipote/an Officer.
The social satire Tartuffe is performed in rhyming couplets, staged with physical comedy and employed with sassy wordplay. It has double entendre and just enough décolletage to be naughty. It’s an amusing good time – a good pick-me-up if you’re feeling down and need a few laughs at the expense of the Establishment or because of, you know *gestures left and right* everything since November 6.
Director Bryn Boice whips her cast into shape for this madcap enactment of Moliere’s most famous play. She has them chewing the scenery and chasing their motivations across the stage to our delight. Boice, the cast, and the designs are all in on Moliere’s jokes, you see. Moliere didn’t write self-awareness into his play but that doesn’t keep Boice from employing it. They are aware that Tartuffe is running an obvious con as old as the church (any church) and show us by breaking the 4th wall: Dorine makes direct eye and dusts an attendee’s show. Valère wooes an audience member when Mariane plays coy. It’s part of the fun and by design. Abuses of power never go out of fashion. Wherever there are patriarchs misusing their money and influence, there will be Moliere and the theatre will be pointing out the imbalance.
Justin Lahue does it again with his inside-of-time/outside-of-time scenic design. Light bulbs on mirrored walls make the set look like a vanity mirror that Organ and his family gaze into; they only see themselves and not their actions. The black and white checkered floor looks like a chess board for the game of life to play out upon.
Wig maven Liv Curren and costume and makeup designer Marissa Wolf further play up the liminal timelessness of the play by mixing the modern with the classical. Bouffant curls sit atop powdered heads and white faces while jeans and leggings fit the bottom half of the actors. The actors are comfortable but not too comfortable. It’s arresting to the eye.
Some of the actors needed some extra time to adapt to Richard Wilbur’s translation. Rhyming is not for everyone. But, after receiving positive feedback from the audience in the form of laughs and claps, these actors relaxed into their roles. Tartuffe is not for everyone. It’s smart, silly and pokes fun at arrogant rich people who may not recognize themselves as arrogant rich people. Hub’s Tartuffe is a confidant production well worth breaking one’s post-election depression to attend.
