Tartuffified!

This Saturday, October 20 2007, at McCarter Theatre I was witness to the company’s production of Tartuffe, directed by Daniel Fish. Well, the first half anyway. The production marks the only other time I’ve ever walked out on a production (the other was 12 years ago in CA- can’t even recall the plays name).

I have seen a few productions of Tartuffe, read a couple translations and performed in two separate productions (One in Collage, as Orgon, and the other as Damis). My experience with the play has never been the same, except that I’ve always enjoyed it… until Daniel Fishes production. It was a huge disappointment.

It should have been better. It was Moliere, it was avant-garde, it had good actors… but it was dreadful. I believe at the time I said: “It was like watching a turd circle round and round in the bowl- now drama but lot’s of stink.

If the director had understood the play at all, he might have been able to deconstruct it better than he did. Now I’m no prude- classically produced theatre can get very boring, and I tend to lean towards the modern abstract, but this production was so irresponsibly presented that I was longing for a good old powdered wig and realistic set!

Okay, I get it. The play is old, so let’s modern it up. Yes, I’ve seen this before. I love it. Anyone who’s ever saw a Sledgehammer Theatre production in the late 90’s in San Diego CA will know what an experience modern theatre can be. But at it’s best, even the most absurd productions have some reason (even Da-Da has reason in that doesn’t).
This piece just looked like a bunch a good ideas someone had late one night an tried to put them all together.

Example: The majority of the set (about two thirds) was an empty grey gallery, with bare panned walls and a TV screen embedded in the upstage center wall. The rest of the stage (and disappearing into the wings) is a17th century Parisian boudoir, enclosed on three side and above, and designed to obscure any good view the audience might have of the action which is crammed in there. This is remedied, by a videographer who follows the action, which is shown on the big screen in the gallery.

Now, so far, the concept is enticing. Indeed, at times it was very effective, watching the design of actors on the TV screen and in reality being set up to drive home a point or emphasize an idea. But once again, I’ve seen it before- and done much better. It didn’t bother me that there was a TV screen, showing me what I couldn’t see, or giving me a different angle of what I could… what drove me to distraction was trying to figure out thee reasons behind the seemingly random use of it. Sometimes the TV would show us other angles of a scene- fine. Sometimes it would come to rest on a picturesque still life from the realistic room, creating a temporary backdrop for the blank gallery- great, brilliant. But then at other times the screen would go blank, or a curtain would cover it, as if the director couldn’t figure out how to use it, so simple dismissed it, bringing it back suddenly when he had a bright idea.
An then there was the story itself. So much time was given to the high-concept, that it felt like very little time was given to the actual story. Strip this stool of it’s fancy “artsy” trappings and you’d be left with a tired flat amateur production- which is really sad, since most of the actors looked capable enough of doing a good play. But with too many forced contrivances, and not much of the comedy left intact, the play grew tired and stale. By intermission I didn’t care what happened to anyone up there. And from the half-assed applause I think most people there felt it, even if they stayed.

Just because someone does something bold and artistic doesn’t make it good. And this Tartuffe was not good. And worst of all, just like the title character tries to do, I fear a few theatre-goers have been taken in by this imposter.