Like all great comedies, Tartuffe rests on serious foundations. We laugh at Tartuffe, but we ought to be half afraid of him as well; and it is an essential aspect of the play's power that it does not end with his being unmasked. On the contrary, he is at his deadliest in the scenes that follow. "Knavery's plain face is never seen till used."

 There is a problem, though. Moliere lived in a society where religion was a major force, and where its perversions were all the more dangerous. Our own society is very different. We still have our Tartuffes, but they are far more likley to be found peddling some secular nostrum: spouting psychobabble, say, or political correctness.

 Not that it should be beyond our imaginations to think our way back into Moliere's world. But it does demand an effort, and there is an easier alternative - to take the play lightly, to treat it as though it were no more (and no less) than a Restoration comedy.

 This is the course that Peter Hall has adopted in his new production at the Playhouse Theatre, with a considerable degree of success. An excellent cast, high spirits, ripe caricature, some moments of unashamed farce - it all makes for a likeable evening, never less than entertaining and never very profound.

 Paul Eddington, as Orgon, the credulous master of the household, exemplifies both the strengths and limitations of the general approach. He is splendidly shaky, anxiety-ridden, forcible-feeble, glassy-eyed: a man waiting to be imposed on. What he fails to convey, on the other hand, is the positive side of Orgon's monomania. You never feel - as you should - that he is virtually in love with Tartuffe, that he gets a thrill merely from pronouncing his name.

One can have no such reservations about Felicity Kendal as the commonsensical maid Dorine. It's a bright, refreshing portrayal, especially in the sence where she mediates between the two quarrelsome lovers. Jennifer Ehle - a new name - is equally good as Orgon's wife, radiating a sensuality that makes Tartuffe's lust more than usually credible.

 Other good performances include Dulcie Gray, got up rather like Queen Victoria in the part of Orgon's pious, imperious mother, and Nicholas Le Prevost as the honest and honourable Cleante. Taken out of contextm Cleante's speeches in favour of tolerance and the golden mean might sound prosy, but how true they ring within the play itself. I learn from the programme that Voltaire said they were"among the most elegant sermons in the language", and Voltaire was right.

 Which leaves us with the puzzle of the production, John Session's performance as Tartuffe himself. First, there's the famous build-up, extending over the first two acts. Then, when he finally appears, we are confronted with a Tartuffe who is neither ascetic (one reasonable possibility) not suave (another), but a grubby Glaswegian wide-boy with a mischievous smile and a soft burr.

 Sessions being Sessions, there are some funny gestures: Tartuffe dismissing a servant with the tiniest wave of the hand, Tartuffe calmly tucking into a meal while Cleante appeals to his non-existent sense of decency.

 But the ruthlessness, the daring and final viperishness of the character, elude him. I began by thinking it was going to be a subtly low-powered performance; I ended by deciding that it was just low-powered.

 Ranjit Bolt's translation does not aspire to Moliere's suppleness or perfection of phrasing, but it breezes nicely along - except at those rather too frequent moments where the actors pause to underline the ingenuity of a rhyme. Some of the knockabout comic business which has been added works extremely well, and there is a businesslike set by Timothy O'Brien (a glass conservatory which gets increasingly shuttered against the daylight). It may not add up to a major production, but it is a very pleasant night out.

 Paul Eddington returned to the West End last night with another masterly comic performance.

 Starring as the gullible Orgon taken in by Moliere's pious conman, Tartuffe, he was hailed afterwards as "a comic genius" by director Sir Peter Hall.

 Sir Peter, recalling that Moliere himself originally took the part in 1664, added: "I did this play because Paul agreed to do it."

 Besides co-stars Felicity Kendal as the maid and John Sessions in the title role, Eddington also found himself sharing the stage of The Playhouse Theatre at Charring Cross with other established theatrical names. Jamie Glover, son of Julian Glover and Isla Blair, was making his second appearance in a Peter Hall production, while Rosemary Harris's daughter Jennifer Ehle and Toby Stephens, son of Robert Stephens and Dame Maggie Smith, were making their West End debuts. Both the debutantes, like Paul Eddington, have been working with Sir Peter on his new film, The Camomile Lawn. So, too, has Rebecca Hall, his youngest daughter by opera singer Maria Ewing, both of whom were at last night's opening.

Initial reviews were favourable. The Daily Mail praised Eddington's "towering monument to wilful folly". "Wonderfully funny," said the Times.

 Attended the Central School of Speech and Drama, 1991
Theatre: Laundry and Bourbon (Edinburgh Festival)
TV: The Camomile Lawn - Ken Taylor's adaptation of Mary Wesley's novel, directed by Peter Hall, which is to be shown on Channel 4 next year.

 We all know - largely, I suspect, because the French have told us so often - that Moliere was a comic genius. But I've always harboured secret doubts.

There's no doubt that on stage the plays that read so drearily in the Pengiun prose translations can achieve a real vitality. But it is the vitality of crude farce. The leading characters are usually one-dimensional creations, dominated by a single aspect of the personality, such as greed or hypochondria. Stock types and stock situations are shamelessly wheeled out again and again. To compare Moliere to Shakespeare is to experience a smug glow of national pride.

 All of which is heresy, of course, and I was devoutly hoping to be converted to the true faith by Peter Hall's new production of Tartuffe at The Playhouse. This, after all, is generally reckoned to be one of the greatest of all his plays, and its portrait of a religous hypocrite who brings a family to the very brink of destruction was regarded as so shocking in its day that the play was banned for several years. The translation is by Ranjit Bolt, who writes rhyming couplets with the ease with which the rest of us dash off a shopping list, and the cast is headed by three of Britain's most gifted and appealing comic actors - Paul Eddington, Felicity Kendal and John Sessions.

Yet it turns out to be a curiously inert evening - no disgrace certainly, but offering little more excitement than an agreeable sitcom on the telly. And I suspect that the fault lies more with the production than with Moliere.

 What Hall misses is the piece's savagery. The story of Orgon, the credulous head of the household, who falls under the spell of Tartuffe, his spiritual counsellor, is a dark one. It shows a basically benign man losing all contact with reason - neglecting his wife, disinheriting his son and forcing his daughter into a wretched marriage under the influence of a malign guru.

This production is insipid. Some of the comic business is tedious (characters are continually gasping and steeping back in collective amazement) and several performances lack bite.

 Tartuffe also strikes me as a work that cries out to be updated. You only have to think of today's television evangelists and dotty spiritual leaders to realise that the theme is timeless, and a modern-dress staing, like the production of Moliere's The Sisterhood at Chichester this summer, would be far more fun.

 Here everything is reverently embalmed in 17th-century historicism on Timothy O'Brien's charmless, cumbersome set. And even Bolt's translation lacks his familiar joie de vivre and generous quotient of jokes. There are, as alywas, passages of real elegance, but long stretches come over more like pantomine doggerel, especially since most of the performers over-emphasise the rhymes.

 There are undoubtedly some enjoyable moments, most notably the splendidly staged scene when Orgon hides under a moving table as Tartuffe seduces the old fool's wife. But we never feel the real pain of the characters which should underlie the laughter, and as a result, the restoration of harmony at the end, with its sublime music and golden lighting effects, fails to touch the heart.

 Paul Eddington is altogether too endearing as Orgon. He has a wonderful repertoire of funny faces and silly voices, and certainly captures the character's absurd gullibility. But it is a performance that desperately begs to be like, and Orgon should inspire contempt as well as laughter.

 John Sessions, too, turns Tartuffe into a cheekily lovable Scottish rogue rather than a sinister threat to other people's happiness. He's highly watchable and often funny, but a great comic monster has been tamed.

 Felicity Kendal is her usual delightful self as the as the good-hearted maid Dorine, huffing and pufffing with indignation at her master's folly, and newcomer Jennifer Ehle brings a beguiling mixture of sense and sensuality to the stage as Orgon's young wife.

 The show certainly delivers a couple hours of civilised, mildly diverting entertainment. But for all my prejudice against Moliere, I'm convinced that Tartuffe should offer far more than that.

 Stately, plump, Dulcie Gray opens Moliere's Tartuffe (Playhouse) like an empress of middle-class disapproval. This gracious and elegant old actress, playing the tyrannical mother of the master of the house, has transformed herself into a poisonously stubborn matriarch: one of those ghastly old people who make you think they are stone deaf, only to reveal that they've heard, and disliked, everything you have said. This is exactly the right way to open this blistering attack on religious hypocrisy which, in Peter Hall's sombre masterful and psychologically acute production, once again reveals itself as a moral and theatrical masterpiece.

 It is a funny thing about Moliere: the British have been rediscovering him these 300-old years, each time with the kind of amazement they shown when an Italian train arrives on time. But actually, Tartuffe's impact has not been weakened in the slightest by the fact that religious hypocrisy, like religion itself, is increasingly a thing of the past. For religious, read social, political, feminist, anti-feminist, left, right or centre forward. Moliere's story, about a conman who insinuates himself into a rich man's house, pretending to be a saintly zealot but with his mind on lower things, would cover many modern hypocrisies.

 In its own time, the play immediately ran into trouble, and even with the protection of Louis XIV, Moliere had difficulties in keeping it on stage. Ranjit Bolt's ribald, tough, hilariously impudent new verse translation is not only extremely actable; it also hints that Bolt has done his homework and knows that Moliere had to tone down the play because 17-th century Parisians found the religious language spoken by Tartuffe deeply offensive. We don't know what cuts Moliere made; but some of Bolt's additional witticisms, irreverently suggesting Tartuffe's Christ-like pretensions, are entirely in the Molierian spirit.

 Tartuffe himself is played by John Sessions like a plump lizard with an aura of invincible complacency. He is an Iago of the salon, deploying a pleasant bluntness which is impervious to accusations of dislike. There is nothing unctuous or insinuating about this performance: this is a sharp, young conman who, like most conmen, is just a little over the top but also disconcertingly cool. When he is found out and Dulcie Gray slaps his face, he follows one of Jesus's less-constructive suggestions and turns the other cheek, knowing that he had won the game anyway. If his Scottish accent suggests sober rectitude, his body language speaks of a thoughtful and devious operator.

 Orgon, the man he deceives, is played by Paul Eddington like an aged eagle moulting with anxiety. He's one of those deeply dim-witted men who pride themselves on their sharp perception, both moral and social, but whose every act betrays a melancholy stupidity. The large, baggy eyes comtemplate the world with sad, moist incomprehension, but Orgon, with a few well-learnt gestures that look decisive, gives it the appearance of wisdom. This is the archetypal superannuated politician, the ancient university don enfeebled by tenure, the non-executive director who is ignored in the boardroom. You should see the play for this performance along: it confirms Eddington as one of the most subtle, moving and commanding actors of his generation. Felicity Kendal takes the small but crucial role of Dorine, the maid: tart and sharp but never merely perky or coy; a serious girl who is not just an impertinent gadfly but an important part of the household.

 Quite a starry cast, no ? But Hall also surrounds them with excellent support, including three promising young actors: Toby Stephens as Orgon's hot-tempered son, Jennifer Ehle as Orgon's young wife, like a peach that has never been bitten, and Jamie Glover as his boisterous, aspiring son-in-law. Nicholas le Prevost plays the moral sense made beady-eyed and human. Even small roles such as Tartuffe's ghastly acolyte (Lionel Guyett) and Loyal, the reptilian bailiff, are impeccably played.

 The whole thing is driven forward with a savage grio: Hall knows that Moliere could be as unsparing about pretensions and greed as Mozart about vanity and lust. The acting style keeps a brilliant balance between the boisterousness of Italian farce which influenced Moliere, and his own moral drive: its hardness is unmistakably French. The actors both impersonate and gently mock their characters. At the end, golden light floods the stage with the arrival of the king's messenger: a moment of truth, salvation, justice and deeply sophisticated irony. Tou can see why a man like Goethe regarded Moliere as one of the great classics.

This page hosted by Get your own Free Homepage