When it comes to men behaving badly there are few who can surpass Moliere's Tartuffe for outrageous social faux pas. How disappointing then to find that Martin Clunes, television's master of bad behaviour by young males, should make such a pale impression as Moliere's conman.
Tartuffe, the man in question, masquerades as a man of strong religious feeling, who actually feels disposed to steal his host's fortune and home, seduce his wife and marry his daughter. Clunes's villainous Tartuffe takes to suave triple-bluffing and the odd sexual proposition with surprisingly mild gusto. He lacks the air of smug piety that successful hypocrites muster. Even when stripped down to his underpants and up to no good with his host's wife, Elmire, Clunes's Tartuffe is hard-put to rise to the comic challenge of being wicked. But then Lindsay Posner's production of Moliere's famous satire of 1664, a power-game about adultery, money and all-controlling fathers, is itself a tame affair that wavers between farce and comedy. The same is true of Ranjit Bolt's new translation. Its light-hearted rhyming couplets are sometimes brightened by nice, salacious wit but give way to jarring anachronisms.
Similarly designer Ashley Martin-Davis plunges us into a world which is puzzlingly both post-modern and seventeenth century bourgeois chic. The atmosphere reeks of mannered artificiality as do the actors.
The merchant Orgon, so mesmerised by Tartuffe's mask of saintliness, that he's lost interest in his wife, son and daughter, ought be played comically as a man in the tight grip of an infatuation - probably a gay one. David Threlfall's Orgon waves his hands around continuously as if his speeches were orchestral music that required a conductor. Even when Orgon believes himself financially ruined, or hides under a table and hears how close his wife is to being ravished by Tartuffe, his sense of outrage is minor. Only Margaret Tyzack's splendidly ridiculous Grandmama, who rails upon her family for failing to recognise Tartuffe as a saint, sounds authentic notes. Julian Wadham as Elmire's brother is equally impressive.
The havoc created as a result of Tartuffe's spell-binding impact upon Orgon inspires Moliere to scathing, comic satire. But Clunes and the company are no scathers. As the maid who sees straight through Tartuffe, Debra Gillett puts on a spirited show of worldly-wise indignation. But Melanie Clark Pullen as Orgon's dim daughter, uncertain whether to settle for Sam Troughton's hysterical lover or to be married off to Tartuffe, and Clare Holman, as her doormat of a mother, are anaemic victims. And Posner's final image - of Louis XIV floating down to rescue the family from disaster - emphasises the romping, fairy-tale lightness of this milk-and-water Moliere.
Tartuffe
