Tartuffe

by Moliere

seen at the Rhodes Scholars Theatre (Barker College) on 19 July 2018

The Old Barker Association Theatre (OBAT) club produced a modern-dress version of Tartuffe at the drama theatre on the school campus. Unfortunately no program or cast list was available; but the production was enjoyable, acted with considerable energy and some clever inventions to offset the potentially stultifying effect of the long rhetorical speeches given in rhyming couplets. Top marks to the cast for even attempting the difficult task of declaiming in translated couplets, even if at times the delivery was taken too quickly for coherence. The occasional undercutting of the high-flown language with considerably more earthy asides or exclamations produced the desired comic effect, and also reminded us that the whole situation, though being exaggerated, really was holding up a sceptical mirror to the whole idea of parental control, religious hypocrisy, and the gullibility and even powerlessness of 'civilised' people in the face of out and out self-interest and shameless amorality. 

An enjoyable effort at performing a classic from a stage tradition very different from modern English-speaking taste.