Andy Jones brings a Rock solid and hilarious Tartuffe to NAC,
Molière play moves to Newfoundland with side-splitting success
“Suckin’ on the hind tit” was likely not among Molière’s catalogue of favoured expressions, but when it’s tossed off in Andy Jones’ hugely funny adaptation of the playwright’s 17th-century satire Tartuffe, which launches the new English theatre season at the NAC, it’s a perfect fit.
That’s because Jones, who also plays the vile religious fraudster Tartuffe — for whom the play is named — has set Molière’s satiric attack on religious hypocrisy in Newfoundland in 1939. It’s a setting that not only captures the vibrancy of Molière’s play with fresh and colourful language (“You’ve got more lip than a coal bucket,” “Sweet Jesus in the garden!”), it also brings the play close enough in time and geography to us in Central Canada that we realize again how timeless and universal this attack — and it can be a vicious one — on religious impostors really is.
Jones’ ultra-loose translation and adaptation adheres to the original’s plot about how Tartuffe, a veteran charlatan, worms his way into the affections and home of the credulous and wealthy Orgon (the reliably good Joey Tremblay).
A war hero, the mercurial Orgon seems to have suffered in the fighting not just an amputation of an arm — some very funny use is made of that empty sleeve — but also of his judgment. “If he had a second brain, it would be lonely,” snaps Dorine, the maid in Orgon’s household who was apparently born to ignore her station in life. (Petrina Bromley’s Dorine is a highlight of this production.)
By welcoming Tartuffe into the bosom of his family, Orgon unleashes a firestorm of deception and nearchaos as the sham man of religion tries to bed his host’s cynical wife Elmire (Christine Brubaker), infuriates Orgon’s hot-blooded son Damis (Eric Davis) and, inadvertently, almost destroys the imminent marriage between Orgon’s daughter Mariane (Leah Doz) and Valere (David Coomber, playing his character to hilarious effect as a total drama queen).
Others in on the action include Cleante (Dmitry Chepovetsky), who is Elmire’s brother and the voice of reason in this house of nutters, and Orgon’s mother and fellow Tartuffe disciple Madame Pernelle, played by Quancetia Hamilton, whose poor enunciation is one of the production’s few flaws.
Eliza-Jane Scott is Madame Pernelle’s fluttery maid, and Sheldon Elter does a side-splitting bit as an officer of the law at the end of the play when Tartuffe, who by this point owns all of the clueless Orgon’s assets, gets his comeuppance.
And what of Jones as the play’s eponymous character? He’s terrific. From the moment Tartuffe is introduced as a smarmy, cash-collecting con man in a play-opening scene invented by Jones, through his chasing Elmire around the dining room table, to his effortless outflanking of anyone trying to pin the tail of dishonesty on him, this Tartuffe is so steeped in fraud that he seems to believe himself.
Jones’ round face is custom-made for the part. Even offstage, he looks like the earnest appliance salesman whose skill could turn your plans to buy a new refrigerator into a household of high-end purchases.
Jillian Keiley, in her second year as artistic director of NAC English Theatre and introducing the first season she’s programmed there herself, directs the show. Keiley also directed it with Jones as Tartuffe when it debuted in their native Newfoundland last summer, and she originated the idea of setting the story in that province.
Her direction is spirited and inventive, and for the most part ensures that Jones’ funny bone and inclination to occasional madcap humour keeps Molière’s intent front and centre. We could, however, have done with a little less of Orgon’s histrionics when, face-to-face with his own credulity, he weeps uncontrollably on a rock outside his home.
Keiley also guides her cast smoothly through the shoal-ridden business of intermittent rhyming lines and makes full use of Patrick Clark’s splendid set — a mammoth, two-storey home with period-appropriate wallpaper, balconies and, naturally, a clothesline strung with drying laundry. Add some other goodies including rousing musical interludes by a group of true believers, and you’ve got one crackerjack Tartuffe. And that’s no lie, b’ye.
Continues until Nov. 2. Tickets: NAC box office, 1-888-991-2787, naccna.ca