Tartuffe

Moliere’s Tartuffe seems to be flavour of the month at the moment with Sydney Theatre Company joining forces with the State Theatre Company of South Australia to present a version adapted by Phillip Kavanagh, and this co-production between Queensland Theatre and Black Swan Theatre Company by Justin Fleming.

This current production is of Fleming’s 2008 adaptation originally produced by Bell Shakespeare. Moliere’s treaty on religiously hypocrisy, first performed in 1664 before Louis X1V at Versailles, has been given a modern make-over, Australianised complete with a fountain of expletives, and like the original written in rhyming couplets. It puts a contemporary spin on the story of a supposedly devout man of the cloth who manipulates the head of a family into relieving him of his wealth.

On a revolve housing Richard Roberts’ grand two-storied mansion set, that wouldn’t be out of place at Sanctuary Cove, Kate Cherry’s direction was the star of the night with her stage business frequently getting more laughs than the actual script.

Best performance came from newcomer Emily Weir as the maid Dorine, who had great style and managed to inject some reality into the rhyming verse with a punchy ‘ocker’ delivery.

For the duplicitous character of Tartuffe to work it requires an actor who is comely with a ton of charisma. Comic actor Darren Gilshenan came up short in both departments. His performance, which the audience loved, overflowed with vulgarity that would have been more at home in vaudeville.

Steve Turner was a convincing dupe Orgon, Alison van Reeken a shapely and sexy Elmire, Alex Williams a bland Damis, with Tessa Lind and James Sweeny a pair of innocuous lovers Marianne and Volere. Jenny Davis’ Madame Pernelle suffered from reams of over-expository and over-written dialogue (not easy when it’s rhymed), whilst Hugh Parker in one of two roles made a memorable ABC reporter with Fleming’s heavy-handed trial-by-media denouement.

David Murray’s lighting added gloss to the production as did Roberts’ designer-thread costumes.

Peter Pinne