When a production of a 362-year-old play ends in a dance to Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” it’s proof that the plot and characters belong to all time. At Town Hall Theater, Middlebury Acting Company gives Molière’s comic gem Tartuffe a contemporary setting to revitalize the story of a fool who can’t recognize his own folly and a swindler who can hypnotize with sham piety. This classic need never go out of style.
The wealthy Orgon has everything: a mansion, an obedient daughter with a worthy suitor, a fine son, a second wife as stunning as she is smart. Elmire is stepmother to Orgon’s children and brings along her tedious but wise brother, Cléante. The household comes complete with an impertinent maid and frequent visits from Orgon’s haughty mother. And all of them couldn’t be more pleased with themselves.
Self-satisfaction is Molière’s favorite target, and in Tartuffe he gives Orgon a new purpose in life, entirely at odds with good judgment and the needs of his own family. Orgon lifts a self-styled religious acolyte from poverty to install him in the choicest feather bed in his own house. This is Tartuffe, a charlatan whose spiritual pretensions mask his real objective — stealing Orgon’s fortune and, if possible, his wife.
A comedy that made fun of the 17th-century bourgeoisie retains its bite when set among modern strivers.
This travesty rests on the patriarch’s credulity, and Orgon is more than up to the task of being a swindler’s mark. Oblivious to all he should hold dear, Orgon settles on the perfect reward for his pet holy man: He’ll break his daughter Mariane’s engagement to the handsome Valère and marry her to Tartuffe.
The turmoil that ensues pits a frantic household against Tartuffe’s languid self-assurance. Molière’s plot gathers speed as Orgon stays bewitched, beyond the reach of reason and family. Today, a comedy that made fun of the 17th-century bourgeoisie retains its bite when set among modern strivers.
Director Melissa Lourie focuses on keeping the audience rooting for Tartuffe’s comeuppance. Dispensing with any hint of puritanism, Tartuffe wears a jungle-print tracksuit with cheesy gold accents and lounges around the house as if leisure wear constitutes max effort. An oversize cross hangs over his well-fed stomach, and his hair is a messy tousle. His downfall is all we care about, but much stands in the way. Orgon’s will is an impossible barrier, and the stakes keep absurdly rising until everyone but Tartuffe is spinning in desperation.
Making the villain so vile gives the audience a single concern, turning the play into something akin to a great chase scene, albeit in clown cars. It sweeps us up, but we miss Cléante’s pomposity, Mariane’s vanity, son Damis’ ineffectual outrage and Valère’s romantic superficiality, all of which Lourie speeds by. Even Dorine, the cunning maid, is more emcee than schemer, a decision that shortchanges Lourie herself, who ably steps into a role she performed earlier in her career. These choices keep the attention on action over character and produce a pace that matches Orgon’s snap judgments.
Tartuffe was first performed in 1664, but we might call Orgon’s folly a midlife crisis, while put-on piety fits any period. Here, the costumes are modern but lack the high-end fashion needed to portray the upper class. Orgon’s plaid Bermuda shorts signal inept nouveau riche, and Tartuffe’s garish garb makes him more dissipated buffoon than devout fraud. But we get the point.
Molière’s humor starts with a funny set of characters who make their own troubles and continues with the sparkle of speech entirely in verse. In the original French, it trotted along in the 12-syllable alexandrine form. The eminent American poet Richard Wilbur’s superb translation shifts the verse to brisker iambic pentameter while preserving rhyming couplets throughout. Working 300 years after Molière, Wilbur created speech with remarkable conversational fluidity and wit.
Lourie keeps the actors focused on the verse’s meaning, not its metronomic pulse. The result is vivid dialogue spoken like spontaneous thought. Wilbur’s rhymes seem effortless as the characters battle and complain. The audience learns to anticipate the couplets like little fireworks of punctuation. The psychology of the characters plays out as their cadences interlock when interrupting. And there is no firmer force onstage than a couplet used to prove a point; there is no better bickering than a rhyme shared by opposing forces. Listen to Orgon quarrel with Elmire:
I know the facts, and I shall not be shaken.
I marvel at your power to be mistaken.
Having the last word in a Molière exchange is delicious, but the pleasure cannot last. The story hurtles on; the vexations accelerate; the silly characters must be laughed at.
Jason Lorber brings vocal polish and subtle comedy to Orgon. It’s a role made for eye popping, and Lorber unleashes some fine sputters but entertains us best while striving to master his exasperation. As Tartuffe, Jordan Gullikson oozes loathsome sanctimony. Tartuffe’s phony piety is hard to puncture, but when left alone with Elmire, Gullikson lets this snake truly slither.
Peyton Mader plays Elmire as an impeccably poised wife who must shed her upper-crust composure when entangled in two hilarious showdowns with Tartuffe. Mader shines when wiggling out of jams, tricking the trickster with last-ditch ingenuity and some slapstick under fire.
Outside of confrontations, Lourie favors formal movement, with actors aiming long chunks of oratory directly at the audience and retreating when finished. It evokes an older, grander style of drama; modern viewers can lose sight of who’s berating whom. But in the scenes of repartee, Lourie lets the humor flow when characters are eye to eye in pure desperation. Molière’s devilish portrait of a fake saint is an enduring satire, and this production lets us honor it with laughter — and a little synth-pop for a curtain call. ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Deceiving Is Believing | Theater review: Tartuffe, Middlebury Acting Company”
This article appears in Winter Preview • 2026.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
