S TU DY GUIDE. Tartuffe PHOTO BY CRAIG SCHWARTZ. By Molière Translated by Richard Wilbur Feb 15 May 24, California s Home for the Classics

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1 S TU DY GUIDE PHOTO BY CRAIG SCHWARTZ. Tartuffe By Molière Translated by Richard Wilbur Feb 15 May 24, 2014 California s Home for the Classics

2 Tartuffe Study Guide Table of Contents 3 Tartuffe: Characters 4 About the Play: Synopsis 5 Molière: Biography 6 Molière: Timeline & Works 7 Richard Wilbur: Translator Biography 9 Molière: Verse Format & Rhyme Scheme 10 Molière: Themes 12 Interview with Director 13 About the Production: Scenic Design 14 About the Production: Lighting Design 15 A Memorable Imposter 18 French Baroque Theatre 20 Questions and Activities 23 Resource Guide 24 About Theatre Arts & Key Terms 25 About A Noise Within A NOISE WITHIN S EDUCATION PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY: The Ahmanson Foundation, Alliance for the Advancement of Arts & Education, Lourdes Baird, The Sheri & Les Biller Family Foundation, The Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation, Kathleen & James Drummy, Sharon & Rick Ellingsen, Employees Community Fund of Boeing California, The Green Foundation, Heather & Paul Haaga, Drs. Jennifer & Robert Israel, The Jewish Community Foundation Michael and Irene Ross Endowment Fund, Anonymous, Terry & Jeanie Kay, Alan M. & Sheila R. Lamson, John K. & Barbara Lawrence, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Terri Murray, National Endowment for the Arts: Shakespeare for a New Generation, The Kenneth T. & Eileen L. Norris Foundation, Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, Leonard Pronko, The Charles & Elizabeth Redmond Scholarship Fund, In Loving Memory of Charles R. Redmond Father, Robert & Ann Ronus, The Rose Hills Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Lyn Spector, The Steinmetz Foundation, James & Trevessa Terrile, Wells Fargo Foundation, Roy H. Wishard & William O. Boden, WWW Foundation 2 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

3 Tartuffe: Character Map TARTUFFE A hypocrite and imposter posing as a holy man. He attempts to seduce Elmire and keep Valère from marrying Mariane. CLÉANTE Brother of Elmire, brother-in-law and friend of Orgon MADAME PERNELLE Mother of Orgon ORGON Parisian gentleman and father of the house. In his quest for religious piety, Orgon has allowed Tartuffe into his home. ELMIRE Wife of Orgon VALÈRE The young romantic lead, who struggles to win the hand of his true love. MARIANE Daughter of Orgon, fiancé of Valère DAMIS Son of Orgon DORINE Mariane s lady maid. She tries to help expose Tartuffe and help Valère. FLIPOTE Servant of Madame Pernelle (Does not speak in the play) A KING S OFFICER/ THE EXEMPT An officer of the king MONSIEUR LOYAL A bailiff Source: McCarter Theatre and 3 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

4 About the Play: Synopsis PHOTO BY CRAIG SCHWARTZ. MADAME PERNELLE visits her son Orgon s house and proceeds to criticize all of the members of the household while praising their boarder, Tartuffe, for his holiness and zeal. The family protests that Tartuffe is false and hypocritical, but Madame Pernelle dismisses their objections. As she leaves, she admonishes everyone to follow Tartuffe s precepts. After Madame Pernelle s departure, Cléante, Orgon s brother-in-law, and the maid Dorine talk about Tartuffe and both agree that he has beguiled Orgon. Damis, Orgon s son, wonders whether his father will still allow Mariane to marry Valère; Damis must know Orgon s feelings because he wants to marry Valère s sister. He asks Cléante to question Orgon about his promise to allow the marriage to take place. Orgon arrives and seems much more concerned about the welfare of Tartuffe than he is about his wife Elmire s illness. Cléante tries to discuss Tartuffe s hypocrisy with Orgon, but he fails and discovers that Orgon is only interested in singing Tartuffe s praises. When Orgon is questioned about the intended wedding, he dodges the issues and refuses to give a direct answer. When his daughter arrives, Orgon tells her that he wants to ally Tartuffe with his house; this he can best do by Mariane s marrying Tartuffe. Mariane is so shocked that she cannot believe her ears! After Orgon departs, Dorine reprimands Mariane for not having refused to marry Tartuffe. Mariane s beloved, Valère, arrives and accuses her of consenting to the marriage. Dorine listens to them argue and then, after they are reconciled, she promises to help them expose Tartuffe s hypocrisy. In an attempt to reveal Tartuffe s hypocrisy, Damis hides in a closet when he hears Tartuffe entering the room followed by Elmire. Thinking that they are alone, Tartuffe professes his love to Elmire and suggests that they become lovers. Damis reveals himself and threatens to expose Tartuffe. When Orgon arrives, Damis tries to inform his father about Tartuffe s proposition, but Orgon is so blind that he thinks his own son is evil in trying to defame Tartuffe s good name and he immediately disinherits his son. When Orgon is alone with Tartuffe, Orgon reveals that he plans to make Tartuffe his sole heir and his son-in-law. They leave to execute this plan. Later, Cléante tries to reason with Tartuffe, but Tartuffe only responds in religious clichés and he hastily excuses himself from the room. Orgon tells Elmire of his plan to make Tartuffe his son-in-law and sole heir. She convinces her husband to hide and observe how Tartuffe acts when Orgon is not around. When Tartuffe arrives, he makes declarations of his love for Elmire as well as derogatory comments about Orgon. Finally convinced of Tartuffe s hypocrisy, Orgon emerges and orders Tartuffe to leave the household. Tartuffe then reveals that legally he is now the owner of the house, since Orgon has signed over all his property. Orgon tells his wife that he is frightened because, earlier, he had entrusted some secret documents to Tartuffe s care documents which could ruin Orgon s trusted position in the court. When Madame Pernelle arrives, Orgon cannot convince her that Tartuffe is a hypocrite until she hears the news that Tartuffe is having the entire family evicted. Tartuffe arrives with officers of the court and orders them to remove the family from the house. When all hope seems lost, one of the officers reveals that the king has seen through the hypocrisy of Tartuffe and ordered that Tartuffe should be imprisoned and Orgon s property restored. Source: Utah Shakespeare Festival Study Guide (edited). 4 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

5 Molière: Biography MOLIÈRE was the stage name of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, born in 1622, to a prosperous Parisian upholsterer. At the age of 21, Jean-Baptiste left the family business and abandoned his legal studies and birth name to take up a career in the theater. His first appearances on stage were with the Illustre Théâtre, a young ensemble whose fortunes soon faltered. After a brief stint in debtors prison, Molière rededicated himself to a life in the theater, spending most of the next fifteen years touring the provinces with Madeleine Béjart, the Illustre s leading lady and his mistress, and other itinerant performers, honing his skills as a comic actor and playwright (though he longed for success as a tragedian), and turning out a number of farces inspired by the Italian commedia troupes he encountered in his travels. Portrait of young Molière, attributed to Pierre Mignard (circa 1660) The company returned to Paris in 1658 with Molière as their manager. Invited to perform before Louis XIV, they quickly won his favor, and Molière was granted the use of the Petit Bourbon (a court theater adjacent to the Louvre) and later the Palais-Royal for the troupe s farces, character comedies, and lavish court entertainments with music by Jean Baptiste Lully. In 1662, Molière married Armande Béjart (the younger sister or the daughter, some insinuated of his mistress), who became a leading actress in his company, beginning with his next play, The School for Wives, which demonstrated the playwright s maturing talent and propelled him into the ranks of France s greatest dramatists. Not all of Molière s plays were unqualified successes, however, and not even the patronage of Louis XIV could protect him from the censure provoked by Tartuffe (1664). Its story of a pious hypocrite and his willing dupe was interpreted by many as a condemnation of religion, and five years elapsed before the play, in modified form, passed official muster. Molière fared little better with Don Juan (1665); its free-thinking title character incurred the wrath of the censors immediately after opening night and the play soon disappeared from the repertoire. Still, by 1665, Molière s company was awarded regular pensions from the crown, and took the title of La Troupe du Roi. The Misanthrope and The Doctor in Spite of Himself premiered a year later, followed by The Miser (1668) and The Learned Ladies (1672). Molière s next play, The Imaginary Invalid (1673), which featured the playwright as a grousing hypochondriac, was to be his last; Molière, who suffered from tuberculosis, took ill during a performance and died shortly thereafter. A Christian burial was initially denied him because he had not received last rites nor had he made a deathbed recantation of his profession (as tradition required), but the archbishop of Paris, responding to petitions from Molière s widow, grudgingly allowed a private burial in the parish cemetery, on condition that it be carried out at night, without ceremony. Author: Janice Paran Source: McCarter Theater Audience Guide. 5 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

6 Molière: Timeline and Works 1622 Born, son of Paris upholsterer in the service of the king 1643 Left home in 1643 and eventually joined Béjart family theatre company 1644 Took stage name, Molière; Real name, Jean Baptiste Poquelin 1658 First performed for Louis XIV with Béjart company 1659 T he Affected Young Ladies (Les Précieuses Ridicules) (also known as The High-Brow Ladies), Molière`s first success; about two provincial girls affecting elegance and wit Married Armande Béjart 1662 The School for Wives (L`ecole des femmes), the first performance caused a great scandal; the pedantic Arnolphe is afraid of women and decides to marry a girl without any experience of the world; the young woman`s natural intelligence and perceptiveness are used as a vehicle of Molière`s critical insights 1664 Tartuffe (Le Tartuffe ou l`imposteur; Tartuffe or the Impostor), originally a 3-act play, banned and later reissued in 5-acts in 1667 (also banned) and 1669 (current version); about a religious hypocrite and scoundrel who deceives the gullible Orgon, tries to seduce his wife, and takes possession of his house and property Company adopted by the king as Troupe du roi 1666 The Misanthrope (Le Misanthrope), Alceste (originally played by Molière) has very high standards and finds fault with everyone but is in love with Célimène, a witty and worldly society lady The Imaginary Invalid(Le Malade Imaginaire), Molière`s last play; about a hypochondriac afraid of death and of doctors 1673 Collapsed on the stage, and later died, while performing his play, The Imaginary Invalid Chronological List of Molière s Works The Jealous Husband (c. 1645) The Flying Doctor (c. 1648) The Scatterbrain (1653) A Lovers Quarrel (1656) Affected Young Ladies (1659) The Imaginary Cuckold (1660) The Jealous Prince (1661) The School for Husbands (1661) The Nuisances (1661) The School for Wives (1662) The School for Wives Criticized (1663) A Versailles Improvisation (1663) The Forced Wedding (1664) The Princess of Elida (1664) Tartuffe (1664, 1667, 1669) Don Juan (1665) Love s CureAll (1665) The Misanthrope (1666) A Doctor Despite Himself (1666) Mélicerte (1666) A Comic Pastoral (1667) The Sicilian (1667) Amphitryon (1668) The Confounded Husband (1668) The Miser (1668) Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1669) The Magnificent Suitors (1670) The Bourgeois Gentleman (1670) Psyche (1671) Scapin s Schemings (1671) A Pretentious Countess (1671) Learned Ladies (1672) The Hypochondriac, or The Imaginary Invalid 6 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

7 Richard Wilbur: Translator Bio RICHARD WILBUR is a poet for all of us, whose elegant words brim with wit and paradox, announced Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin when the poet succeeded Robert Penn Warren to become the second poet laureate of the United States. Wilbur won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for his collection Things of This World: Poems in 1957 and a second Pulitzer for New and Collected Poems. He has won the Wallace Stevens Award, the Frost Medal, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, two Bollingen Prizes, the T.S. Eliot Award, the Edna St. Vincent Millay Memorial Award, the Prix de Rome Fellowship and many more honors, fellowships and awards for his poetry. His translations of French verse, especially Voltaire s Candide and the plays of Molière and Jean Racine, are also highly regarded by critics; his translation of Molière s Tartuffe won the 1971 Bollingen Prize. Wilbur s grandfather and great-grandfather were both editors, and Wilbur showed an early interest in journalism. As a student at Amherst College in the early 1940s, Wilbur wrote stories, editorials, and poems for his college newspaper and magazine. His experience as a soldier in World War II, however, drove him to versify in earnest. He has described the influence of his experiences in war on his poetry: One does not use poetry for its major purposes, as a means to organize oneself and the world, until one s world somehow gets out of hand. This emphasis on order and organization shapes Wilbur s first collection, The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems (1947), which treat his war experiences in a style so elaborately formal that the most awful subjects are sublimated into irony, or even black comedy, noted Adam Kirsch in the New Yorker. Wilbur s concern with order and his restrained, formal touch opened him to charges of sacrificing real emotion for smoothness. James Dickey, in his book, Babel to Byzantium, wrote that one has the feeling that the cleverness of phrase and the delicious aptness of Wilbur s poems sometimes mask an unwillingness or inability to think or feel deeply; that the poems tend to lapse toward highly sophisticated play. Of Wilbur s second book, Ceremony and Other Poems (1950), Randall Jarrell famously complained that Wilbur never goes too far, but he never goes far enough. John Reibetanz speculated in Modern Poetry Studies that for Richard Wilbur, the sights offered by World War II contradict and threaten his most basic beliefs, as we can infer them from his writings: that love is more powerful than hatred; that nature is a source of values and of reassurance; and that there is a strong creative urge in both man and nature which constantly seeks and finds expression in images of graceful plenitude... But in the 1940 s, Reibetanz concludes, the utter disparity between what he saw and what he wished to see made him run for cover. But Wilbur himself has dismissed the notion that being a poet of praise and not complaint is a matter of running from reality. I feel that the universe is full of glorious energy, he explained in an interview with Peter Stitt in the Paris Review, that the energy tends to take pattern and shape, and that the ultimate character of things is comely and good. I am perfectly aware that I say this in the teeth of all sorts of contrary evidence, and that I must be basing it partly on temperament and partly on faith, but that s my attitude. Robert B. Shaw comments in Parnassus: Poetry in Review that while it is true that some of Wilbur s earlier poems veer with disconcerting abruptness from the naturalistic to the esthetic.... He has never, in fact, avoided negative subject matter as completely as some critics have charged. The critic later asserts that several poems in his third collection, Things of This World, deal directly with humane and political issues. While Wilbur continued to produce composed, reflective, and largely optimistic poetry in collections like Things of This World, (1956), Advice to a Prophet (1961) and Walking to Sleep (1969) using traditional patterns of rhyme and meter, the poetic landscape of the times meant that his work was often judged harshly. The typical ghastly poem of the fifties was a Wilbur poem not written by Wilbur, wrote Donald Hall in 1961, a poem with tired wit and obvious comparisons and nothing to keep the mind or the ear occupied. Hall knowingly added: It wasn t Wilbur s fault, though I expect he will be asked to suffer for it. When the Confessional poets of the 1960s and 70s came into vogue, Wilbur s reputation began to suffer. Public taste, Stephen Metcalf wrote in the New York Times, courtesy of Howl and Lowell s Life Studies and the phenomenon known as Sylvia Plath edged away from Wilbur, and from his dedication to urbanity and metrical poise. Wilbur, it used to be said, coasted along a little too smoothly; he wrote the poem bien fait. However, Wilbur s work has always enjoyed critical acclaim, and his third volume, Things of This World, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

8 Richard Wilbur: Translator Bio The volume contained one of Wilbur s most famous poems A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra, which Jarrell himself described as one of the most marvelously beautiful, one of the most nearly perfect poems any American has written. Another poem from the same collection, Love Calls Us to the Things of This World, is one of his most anthologized. Wilbur s collections from the 1970s and 80s continued his reputation as a formalist writing important work, though writing it somewhat on the fringes of contemporary poetry. Poems like those in The Mind Reader (1976) manage to stand up against every kind of poetic chic, said Bruce Michelson in Southern Review. As Wilbur has grown older, however, his work has become more personal in a Paris Review interview, he admitted I ve begun to crumble a bit, and write more shamelessly of what is near to me. He was awarded his second Pulitzer Prize for New and Collected Poems (1988). His nomination for the poet laureate position came soon after. Analyzing New and Collected Poems, the Los Angeles Times Book Review contributor Joshua Odell noted how the new poems clearly show a continued evolution in style from an ornate elegance found particularly in Wilbur s first collection, The Beautiful Changes, toward a simple, direct and crisp verse. Still, as some critics have noted, the changes in Wilbur s poetry have not affected the basic philosophy his verses have always shown: a belief that the glorious energy of the world tends toward pattern and shape. Wilbur s detachment, his refusal to complain or glamorize the self, his formal brilliance and his reliance on meter and rhyme have helped him regain critical attention, and the publication of his Collected Poems in 2005 was met with much acclaim. Writing in Slate, James Longenbach wrote that Wilbur s poems matter not because they may or may not be stylish at any given moment but because they keep the English language alive: Wilbur s great poems feel as fresh as astonishing, as perplexing, as shocking as they did 50 years ago. Wilbur is also a gifted and prolific translator. His aptitude and facility with formal verse have benefitted his work translating French poetry and plays. Speaking of his tactful, metrical and speakable translation of verse drama, Hudson Review critic Alan Shaw comments: Wilbur s [translations] are almost the solitary example of this kind in English. The expertise and importance of the poet s translations of plays by Moliere, Voltaire, and Racine has been little questioned by reviewers. The rendition [of Moliere s The Misanthrope], delightful and literate, made Moliere accessible for the first time to a wide American audience, wrote David H. Van Biema in People. Comparing Wilbur s version of The Misanthrope (1955) to other translators, John Ciardi wrote that instead of cognate-snapping, as the academic dullards invariably do, Wilbur has found English equivalents for the turn and nuance of the French, and the fact that he has managed to do so in rhymed couplets that not only respect themselves as English poetry but allow the play to be staged... with great success is testament enough. Wilbur has also published a number of works for children. These include a trio of word-play books devoted to synonyms and antonyms: Opposites (1973), More Opposites (1991), and Runaway Opposites (1995). Self-illustrated, these books offer amusing poems devoted to words with opposite meanings. A Game of Catch, another work for children, was first published in the New Yorker in 1953 and reprinted as a separate volume in Other books for children include The Disappearing Alphabet (1998) and The Pig in the Spigot (2000). Wilbur s children s literature often investigates language and words in a witty, inventive way. Jennifer M. Brabander of Horn Book noted that Wilbur s poems are filled with small, satisfying surprises. Richard Wilbur s books of prose include Responses: Prose Pieces, (1976 / 2000) and The Catbird s Song: Prose Pieces (1997). Mary Maxwell, reviewing the book for the Boston Review thought that readers may be surprised by melancholy undercurrents swelling below the book s expectedly sane and sunny acumen. Wilbur taught for twenty years at Wesleyan University and helped found the influential Wesleyan University Press poetry series in 1959, which first published important poets like James Wright, Richard Howard, and Roberty Bly. The press continues to publish important new and established contemporary poets to this day. After Wesleyan, Wilbur spent ten years as writer-in-residence at Smith College. He has also served as Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets. Source: 8 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

9 Molière: Verse Format & Rhyme Scheme VERSE FORMATING Molière wrote Tartuffe in one of the most popular literary formats of 17th Century France, Alexandrine verse. Each Alexandrine line consists of 12 syllables. Syllables 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 are unaccented. Syllables 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 are accented. In the middle of the line, between syllables 6 and 7, is a brief pause called a caesura. Occasionally, an Alexandrine line contains 13 syllables, the last one unaccented. In English versification, an Alexandrine line is equivalent to iambic hexameter, iambic referring to the succession of unaccented/accented pairs and hexameter referring the total of six two-syllable pairs. Following is the eighth line of Tartuffe in the original French, demonstrating the Alexandrine scheme with the caesura after the comma. The accented syllables are in bold, translations in gold. MOLIÈRE S RHYME SCHEME Molière wrote Tartuffe in rhyming couplets. A couplet is a pair of lines in which the final syllable of each line rhymes. Following are lines 7-12 in the original French, demonstrating this rhyming pattern. Madame Pernelle is the speaker. The rhyming syllables are in boldfaced blue, translations in gold. Example: C est que je ne puis voir tout ce ménage-ci, Et que de me complaire, on ne prend nul souci. Oui, je sors de chez vous fort mal édifiée;...madame Pernelle announces that she is ending her visit because no one in... Example: Et que de me complaire, on ne prend nul souci. Loose English translation: And no one makes any effort to please me. Dans toutes mes leçons, j y suis contrariée...her son s household takes her advice or treats her with respect. On n y respecte rien; chacun y parle haut, Et c est, tout justement, la cour du roi Pétaut. The Alexandrine format does not apply to lines with only a few syllables, as in the following line spoken by Orgon: Ah! mon frère, bonjour. Ah! Good morning, brother. Source: Cummings Study Guide. 9 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

10 Molière: Themes HYPOCRISY The central theme of Tartuffe is hypocrisy, as exhibited in the holier-than-thou attitude of the antagonist. Tartuffe is the personification of hypocrisy, pretending to be morally upright and extremely pious when he is really a scoundrel. The main theme of Molière s Tartuffe refers to the hypocrisy of religion versus Christian virtues, or people who claim to be religious but are hypocrites instead. Costume Design by Angela Balogh Calin The Absurdity of Zealotry During Molière s time, a rogue Roman Catholic movement that advocated extreme piety gained a modicum of popularity. Called Jansenism, it promoted the Calvinist tenet of predestination along with an austere, almost unforgiving moral code. Pope Innocent X condemned Jansenism in 1653 in a papal edict entitled Cum Occasione ( With Occasion ). In Tartuffe, Molière, a Roman Catholic educated at a Jesuit school, lampooned Jansenism in particular and fanaticism of any kind in general through his characterization of Tartuffe. Thus, Molière was doing with his play what the pope had done with his edict. However, when the play opened before the king and his court at Versailles Palace, the clergy frowned on it because they thought its purpose was to satirize all clergymen, as well as the Catholic religion in general. Molière had to revise the play twice before the king approved it for public performance. Oddly, Molière, though a lifelong Catholic, remained out of favor with the church for the rest of his days because he chose to act in plays as well as write them. Acting at that time was considered a sinful profession, and the church refused full communion to those who performed on the stage. GULLIBILITY Orgon foolishly believes in everything Tartuffe says and does. Even though his family members call his attention to Tartuffe s obvious hypocrisy, Orgon stubbornly supports Tartuffe, even making him his heir and offering him the hand of his daughter. Orgon s utter gullibility represents the attitude of churchgoers who accept sham religion characterized by zealotry. It also represents the foolhardiness of anyone who falls victim to hypocrisy in any form. However, in his mockery of Orgon and Tartuffe, Molière does not in any way impugn sincere religious attitudes. Underdogs Can Bite Though only a lowly servant girl, Dorine is perceptive, witty, and bold an astute judge of character who is not afraid to speak her mind. In many ways, this maid of steel is the most admirable character in the play, demonstrating that one does not have to be 10 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

11 Molière: Themes highborn to be high-minded. Her opposition to female subservience in a male-dominated society is centuries ahead of its time, as evidenced by the advice she gives Mariane after the latter s father, Orgon, orders her to marry Tartuffe: Tell him one doesn t love by proxy; Tell him you ll marry for yourself, not him; Since you re the one for whom the thing is done, You are the one, not he, the man must please; If his Tartuffe has charmed him so, why let him Just marry him himself no one will hinder. All-Consuming Power of an Obsession In Tartuffe, Molière satirizes preoccupation with abnormally rigid piety and morality. But it is not the antagonist, Tartuffe, who suffers from a fixation or mania; he is a charlatan who only pretends to be a religious perfectionist. Rather, it is the protagonist, Orgon, who labors under an obsession. His neurotic fascination with Tartuffe s perfidious preachments on religion and holiness is so powerful that he forcefully betroths his daughter to Tartuffe, ignores his ailing wife, and disinherits his son in favor of Tartuffe. At a time when such men as Tartuffe actually existed preaching an austere form of spirituality that narrowed the passageway to heaven Molière well realized the need for remedial laughter to expose the hypocrites and their perverse obsessions. DRAMATIC IRONY Molière uses dramatic irony effectively in Tartuffe. The most notable example of it one which undergirds the entire play is Orgon s unwitting approval of Tartuffe, whom the rest of his family and the audience know is a scoundrel. Orgon exhibits his naiveté again and again in the lines he speaks, including the following lines praising Tartuffe for watching over Elmire, Orgon s wife. (Tartuffe, of course, is not really looking out for Elmire s welfare; he is trying to seduce her.) He censures everything, and for my sake He even takes great interest in my wife; He lets me know who ogles her, and seems Six times as jealous as I am myself. Dramatic irony is also evident in the words spoken by Madame Pernelle, who is adamant in her high opinion of Tartuffe. After Orgon at long last realizes that Costume Design by Angela Balogh Calin Tartuffe is a trickster, he informs her of the hypocrite s machinations. But, refusing to believe Orgon, Madame Pernelle tell him: My dear, appearances are oft deceiving, And seeing shouldn t always be believing. She also observes: False suspicions may delude, And good to evil oft is misconstrued. Source: Cummings Study Guide. 11 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

12 Interview with the Director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott DIRECTOR Alicia Green EDUCATION DIRECTOR EDUCATION DIRECTOR: What drew you to this play? JULIA RODRIGUEZ-ELLIOTT: I love working with Moliere because the comedy can be fierce. While Moliere s plays are most often played as broad comedies I believe that there is a dark urgency within his plays that I am always interested in exploring. In the case of Tartuffe, I am most interested in the dynamics that exist within an individual/group that allow someone like Tartuffe to gain entry and take hold. Why do we allow another individual to have that kind of power over us? What is it that we fear? The other aspect of the play that I m drawn in by is the destructive power of extremism which plays a central role in the play. ED Why do you think Orgon and Madam Pernell were so willing to trust in Tartuffe? JRE: I think that for any of us there are times where we can all be vulnerable to the machinations of a Tartuffe type figure. Whether we are unhappy, dissatisfied and searching for an answer or are living in a sort of fear, if someone comes into our lives that seems to have all the answers and provides a direction, we will follow them. There is something very compelling about a man like Tartuffe. If we are to believe what Madam Pernell says, this is potentially a household/family that has lost its way. They are living large, i.e. spending lots of money, partying until late at night etc. I started thinking about what she says and the fact we are looking at 2 young people who lost their mother (Damis/Marianne) and now find themselves with a stepmother (and in our production we are pushing the idea that she is close in age to Damis & Marianne). So Orgon has married a young woman who perhaps has very different priorities than his and the marriage is going though a challenging phase. Because I think there is generational conflict in the play, I liked the idea of a young wife with a middle-aged husband. Orgon, I believe, is a good man. He is a respected member of the community, successful, and sees himself in a situation that he is not able to manage. Enter Tartuffe... ED How does Tartuffe s presence affect the household? JRE: Their world is turned upside down and the household is essentially held hostage by Tartuffe. Prisoners in their own home if you will. ED That s a bit dark for a comedy. Does it have a happy ending? JRE: Ultimately, there is a happy ending in the sense that they are shaken up and perhaps better able to look at each other in a more profound way given their journey; but while vanquishing Tartuffe restores justice it does not ensure immediate happiness for the family. They have been brutalized by Tartuffe and the family will need to heal. All this being said the humor in the play will not be lost but there is something unsettling about the events that take place during the course of the play. ED Can you speak to why you chose the Richard Wilbur translation of the play? JRE: Wilbur is the pre-eminent translator of Molière. His translations leave the integrity of the rhyming couplet throughout the text and through this retains the feeling of the original French. 12 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

13 About the Production: Scenic Design Frederica Nascimento A SCENIC PROJECT always starts with the reading of the play. As a designer, I read it several times and let it wash over me. Once I have formulated initial impressions, I then have the first meeting with the director and begin to share ideas. The director is really the most important person in the team, and as a designer the goal is to work together as one. When I read a text, as a designer my thoughts immediately go to the shapes. I see so many possible geometries. It is exhausting and exhilarating. When your physical vision for the production and the director s vision are one and the same, as has been the case working with A Noise Within Director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, then it s magic. That kind of synchronicity between director and designer is a real thrill for a designer. With Julia, the process is fluid and continuous and everything is possible. Some ideas were there since the start: hypocrisy, generational conflict, monumental scale, color, lack of color, hostages, eroticism, wild humor, extremes, a big window, a table, places to watch from, a large scale portrait, religious artifacts, a chandelier, a sort of dance, a prisoner. The main ideas for the set colors were glossy black, red and grey with touches of pattern and antique gold. All of these images/ideas were thrown into the mix and eventually a scenic design emerged. Tartuffe is always present, observing from above, listening through the walls, his presence is felt since the moment the play begins. He is a dark presence, invading the house, penetrating the space and taking over. This presence affects the set as the audience begins to see the colors fading as life drains away throughout the play. There is also a large portrait and a black back drop that slowly take over the set, mimicking Tartuffe s presence growing as the play goes on. The architecture of the theatre creates opportunities, while also setting limits, on what is possible in creating a scenic design. With this knowledge, my research and the practical notes from the play complete, I am able to start the final drawings, final drafting and final model. Even when we decide to make a change, the initial concept remains in the design. Tartuffe by Molière is a great play for a scenic designer because a million things are happening in the same room. I like to design classical texts particularly because they offer a complex structure to work with. Frederica Nascimento (Scenic Design, Tartuffe) With ANW: Debut Other Theatres: Frederica works in theatre, opera, dance and film. Directors worked with include José Álvaro Morais, Manoel de Oliveira, Wim Wenders, Pina Bausch, Robert Wilson, Rogério de Carvalho, João Canijo, Ruben Polendo, Ron Sossi, Chris Fields, Simon Levy, Shishir Kurup, Laurie Woolery, Larry Biederman, Bart DeLorenzo, Shirley Jo Finney among others. Collaborates with Johannes Wieland Dance Company in New York and is a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop. Education/Training: Awarded the Tisch School of the Arts Scholarship and received her MFA from Tisch/ NYU with the J. S. Seidman Graduating Award for Excellence in Design. Graduated from Lisbon School of Theatre and Film, IFICT Theatre Institute, and Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Lisbon. She is a scholar with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Luso- American Foundation and member of the Portuguese Architects Association. Frederica is faculty at Los Angeles Film School and member of the United Scenic Artists USA 829, IATSE. VOCABULARY Back Drop The rear curtain of a stage setting. Drafting is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or is to be constructed. Scenic Design (also known as scenography, stage design, set design or production design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Model A small object, usually built to scale, that represents in detail another, often larger object. 13 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

14 About the Production: Lighting Design Kenneth Booth IN APPROACHING the lighting design I take my clues from the director and from the other designers with particular attention to the set and costumes. The design for ANWs production of Tartuffe is highly stylized and has a modern sensibility. While there is furniture and architecture of the period, there is a modernity to it as well. The costumes also have a period silhouette with some very modern accessories. The entire design is a hybrid of expressionism and classicism. With that in mind I thought the lighting should be subtle and not call attention to itself. Set Design by Frederica Nascimento. There is a good deal of white in the set, which caused much of the lighting to bounce everywhere. This provided soft and indirect lighting. But to avoid the lighting looking flat, I used minimal front lighting and stronger top and back lighting. I like the costumes and wigs to look a little crispy. The bounced lighting also helped to light the set. Sometimes a set looks better when there is minimal light hitting it. This also helps to keep the focus on the actors. The play progresses from a very festive (almost carnival feel) at the start and eventually all the color is slowly stripped away and it goes to an atmostphere of decay. So the lighting design will mirror that transformation with the use of lots of color in the beginning to a more gloomy (colorless) stark look by the end. I am also incorporating the use of footlights to highlight the comedy and theatricality of the play and also as a way to accentuate the more stark moments as the play progresses. VOCABULARY Lighting Designer Works with the director, choreographer, set designer, costume designer, and sound designer to create the lighting, atmosphere, and time of day for the production in response to the text. Indirect Lighting Lighting in which the light emitted by a source is diffusely reflected (as by the ceiling). Footlights Lights placed in a row along the front of a stage floor. Ken Booth (Lighting Designer, Tartuffe) ANW Resident Artist. With ANW: Ken has designed more than forty productions for A Noise Within since Some of his favorites include Pericles, Prince of Tyre, A Christmas Carol, Cymbeline, The Bungler, The Chairs, Noises Off, Great Expectations, Richard III, Taming of the Shrew, Ubu Roi, Oliver Twist, Life is a Dream, Dear Brutus, A Wilde Holiday, Skin of our Teeth, Buried Child, and A Midsummer Night s Dream at the Hollywood Bowl. 14 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

15 A Memorable Imposter By James Mills MOLIÈRE FIRST PRESENTED Le Tartuffe at the Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle, a royal extravaganza held at Versailles under the auspices of Louis XIV, as the second featured play after his Princess of Elide. Performed on May 12, 1664, on the sixth day of the fête, under the title, Tartuffe or the Impostor, the unfinished threeact play initially received the king s approval, but not that of the church, which condemned its treatment of the subject of abuse and religious zeal by a confidence man and his victim (Hallam Walker, Molière [Boston: G. K. Hall, 1971], 81). Its portrayal of credulity, distorted faith, and blind obedience earned the censure of the archbishop of Paris, who was irate over its possible bad effects on society, as well as the disapproval of the Queen Mother, who similarly expressed her strong dismay. PHOTO BY CRAIG SCHWARTZ. Molière was obliged to battle for the next five years against great odds to have his play accepted and was reduced to giving private readings because of legal sanctions against it. In an attempt to curry favor, he offered a revised version in five acts in 1665, which was rejected. In 1667 he presented another version under the title, Panulfe or the Impostor, in which he attempted to mollify his enemies by modifying Tartuffe s near clerical garb and changing his name to Panulfe. However, his efforts were in vain, for the play was suppressed by the archbishop of Paris who forbade involvement with it on pain of excommunication. It was not until 1669 that the present format was offered on stage in a published version with official approval at the Palais-Royal Theatre. Although scholars disagree as to what was contained in the earlier versions, most feel that they differed substantially from the 1669 play (James F. Gaines, Social Structures in Molière s Theatre [Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1984], 199). It was during the Quarrel of Tartuffe that Molière came to realize that he was no longer able to count fully on the political backing of the king nor the moral support of the public (Ronald W. Tobin, Tarte à la crème Comedy and Gastronomy in Molière s Theatre [Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990], 46). However, this period also witnessed the appearance of the masterpieces of his maturity: Dom Juan (1665), The Misanthrope (1666), Amphitryon (1668), George Dandin (1668), and The Miser (1668). Tartuffe is a contemporary play that mirrors the religious struggles of the seventeenth century. Only recently ( ), there had been violent conflicts called Frondes during which religious groups sided with the various factions of nobles vying for power. And France still felt 15 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

16 the repercussions of the bloody civil strife between Catholics and Huguenots that witnessed the massacres on Saint Bartholomew s Day in 1572 and continued in Molière s time with the ongoing harassment of the Protestants. The Jesuits continued to oppose the heretical Jansenists, a conflict whose fires had been recently stoked by Blaise Pascal s Provincial Letters ( ) which served as an apologia for the Jansenists and as an indictment of the Jesuits. Gallicans, who sought greater French autonomy from Rome, opposed the Ultramontanists, who gave primary allegiance to the Pope. Quietists fought to worship in private without church control, while various cults practiced their secret rites, including black magic, at all levels of French society. Religion and politics were inextricably bound together, with the way to temporal power being ecclesiastical. Cardinal Richelieu had cemented that symbiotic relationship during the reign of Louis XIII, while Cardinal Mazarin, who had just died in 1661, had continued the centralization of power during the early ascendancy of the maturing Louis XIV. The sources for Tartuffe are unclear. Although Philip Wadsworth indicates that Flaminio Scala s Il Pedante, published in 1611, is the only serious source still considered, he nevertheless dismisses it and suggests instead that a novel by D Audiguier and a Spanish novella adapted in French by Scarron are more contemporary to Molière and offer many of the same features Frontispiece and title page of Tartuffe or The Imposter from a 1739 collected edition of his works in French and English, printed by John Watts. as those found in Tartuffe (Molière and the Italian Theatrical Tradition [French Literature Publications Company, 1977], 20-23). Molière spent fifteen years on the road working his early plays and sketches for commedia dell arte skits. The Italians and Spaniards taught him elegance and cynicism, as well as the use of disguises, trap doors, stock characters, and mysterious happenings. Reflections of his formative training appear in Tartuffe in his use of such theatrical devises as Orgon hiding under the table, the clowning of Dorine, and the quarrel between Mariane and Valère. He made fun of royalty, criticized society, admired the common sense of the lower classes, saw the similarities in life, presented a nobility that was not always admirable, and offered his own views of life. Finely wrought comedy was for Molière a disrespectful attitude to a potentially tragic situation (Albert Bermal, trans, One-Act Comedies of Molière, [New York: The World Publishing Company, 1964], 5). The themes of knowledge and blind ignorance, reality and appearances, and love and its distortions served as social criticism designed to educate society (Walker, 83). Tartuffe is an essentialist view of men and women. It has to do with a city morality, where life is more a matter of perpetual contact with others than with nature or things (Percy A. Chapman, The Spirit of Molière [Russell and Russell, Inc., 1965], 232). Ultimately, the whole play tends to be greater than the sum of its parts as its appeal is largely attributable to its coherence and wholeness as a comic structure (Wadsworth, ). Tartuffe is probably Molière s most sinister character. While the name is apparently from the Italian tartufulo, meaning truffle, there is a subtle hint of deception in the French verb truffer, which could mean tromper, or to deceive (Gaston Hall, Molière: Tartuffe [London: Arnold, 1960], 24). The play s ominous quality has been emphasized by Harold Knutson, who has discussed its sense of imminent defeat and ritual death. He sees a symbolic death for Mariane when she ponders extinction at the prospect of a forced marriage to Tartuffe and metaphoric suicide in her pleas to enter a convent. Orgon murders 16 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

17 Damis when he replaces him with Tartuffe as his legal heir. Ironically, he, in turn, experiences ritual death when he tries to expel Tartuffe only to have the latter demand that he leave his own home. The overall mood is one of perfidy, betrayal, and despair (Molière, an Archetypal Approach, [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976], 77 78). It is significant that Du Croisy, the actor who usually played comic roles, played Tartuffe, while Molière played Orgon. Where Tartuffe is a country boor aping Town manners, especially in his effort to play l honnête homme amoureux (Knutson, The Triumph of Wit [Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1988], 91), Orgon has high social standing, is wealthy, owns his own home, has an abundance of money, is a man of power, and perhaps a royal officer or officier de longue robe, either of the sovereign courts or the financial administration (Gaines, ). In fact, Lionel Gossman treats Orgon as the pivot of the play and suggests that a true understanding of it is based on the relationship of the blind obedience of Orgon and the hypocritical wickedness of Tartuffe. He observes that dupe and deceiver and which is which? are seen to be partners in the same enterprise (Men and Masks, A Study of Molière [Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1963], 101). It is his opinion that Orgon, a Christian who is unable to give love or receive it, views Tartuffe as a kind of Christ-figure and is not interested in the real qualities of his guest but only in the authority that he commands (104). This is a play about authority and power, and the reality is that Orgon himself is largely responsible for Tartuffe s imposture (Gossman, 112). Even Madam Pernelle, who is possessive and tyrannical, seeks to usurp her own son s place in his home and covets power over others through Tartuffe. It also has to do with the family and its potential destruction by an intruder. The play takes place indoors with the word, céans, which means on these premises, being used an unprecedented fourteen times. It is Molière s first realistic picture of a bourgeois interior. It revolves around a traditional bourgeois family consisting of three generations, as well as extended family. The unity of the family, a symbol for continuity and social renewal, is temporarily threatened and destabilized by the presence of the intruder. Molière s intent was not to destroy society but to teach the lesson that false power and false piety were not for the public good. When the officer of the king arrives during the dénouement, he enters a home filled with confusion, usurpation, treachery, and despair. It is his duty to restore order in the name of Louis XIV. He functions as deus ex machina, or rex ex machina, in order to reinforce the ultimate power of the monarch over his people to restore authority to where it properly belongs in an orderly society (Tobin, 113). Ironically, while Tartuffe seeks honor and glory in Orgon s home, it is the king who symbolically takes it away Set Design by Frederica Nascimento. from him to return it to Orgon, and, indirectly, to himself. Yet, as Knutson points out: Whatever the comic force of many scenes, the ominous mood that hangs over the play remains with us long after the dénouement. A cancer of bondage and corruption has set into the play s society, and, even after it is extirpated at the comic reversal, the concluding verses speak more of relief and gratitude than of exultation and victory (Archetypal, 76). Molière s was a vision of reconciliation, with the family unit serving as an emblem for societal harmony. His was a ritual view of comedy that celebrated regeneration. It is nevertheless ironic that in Tartuffe the dénouement is the fantasy, while the body of the play represents the reality of life. In other words, the komos reveals the fantasy, while it is the tragic that is the real world. Ultimately, Molière sought to paint a France in which some sort of compromise is hit upon between vigor of personality, stability of custom, and enlightened acceptance of authority (Chapman, 248). In Tartuffe he succeeds in creating one of his most successful and best-loved masterpieces and one of his most memorable characters, even if he is an impostor. Source: From Midsummer Magazine, A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

18 French Baroque Theatre HAMLET S ADVICE to the players offers a philosophy of the theater that was widespread throughout the baroque period, that of art mirroring nature. This philosophy was equally applied by playwrights and visual artists of the time- -not surprising, since theater and painting had long been considered sister arts (Lee). But what is the nature the baroque artist and dramatist were to mirror? Renaissance scholars had inherited a clear perception of a hierarchical universe from the Middle Ages. According to this view, the world was a perfectly ordered structure, in which God reigns from heaven above, man exists on the earth below, and hell is an underworld lower still. The hierarchical structures of earthly institutions--led by divinely ordained representatives in both the political and religious spheres-- mirror this larger, eternal order (Denton). Costume Design by Angela Balogh Calin The purpose of playing both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as t were the mirror up to nature. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 3, scene 2, lines This vision came under assault as the dominance of Catholic theology--which placed man (earth) at the center of God s universe--was challenged both by scientific advances and the Protestant Reformation. In response to these tensions, the Church codified its doctrine at the Council of Trent ( ), leading to the establishment of the Counter-Reformation movement. This continuing theological controversy was a manifestation of a general need to restore a sense of harmony and order to the world. Baroque artists operated within this context, creating dynamic works that superimpose concerns about order and disorder upon the traditional representation of hierarchies, both earthly and heavenly. The metaphor of theatrum mundi, or the world as stage, derives from classical sources such as Plato and Horace and from early Christian writers such as Saint Paul (Curtius, ). While not a new concept, it was frequently employed by baroque thinkers to express an ordered world and the forces that threatened it. Throughout Europe, playwrights such as Molière and Shakespeare used the motif in their works to emphasize the close relationship between the stage and life. Nowhere was this metaphor more pronounced than in Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca s 1635 work El gran teatro del mundo (The Great Theater of the World). In this play, Calderón proposed that (to quote William 18 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

19 PHOTO BY CRAIG SCHWARTZ. Shakespeare) all the world s a stage with God as the ultimate director. As the play opens, the Autor, both director of the play and a characterization of God, uses multiple metaphors to connect the creation of a play to the creation of the world. As actors arrive for their assignments, the Director/Creator gives each one a role that corresponds to a social category (i.e. Beggar, Peasant, King, Rich Man). As the play progresses, the actors must relinquish their earthly roles and pass into the eternal realm. Actors/souls are only allowed into God s presence if they have proven their worth in their roles/lives. Calderón not only reinforced the existence of a temporal or earthly hierarchical order, but he also stressed the ultimate supremacy of the eternal hierarchy found in God s kingdom. There is an illusory quality to the earthly hierarchy, as each man s assigned role in this world is only a shadow of the more permanent part to come. 1 9 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season This idea was presented on various stages throughout Europe. Shakespeare employed it (with temporal rather than theological focus) in works such as Hamlet, Macbeth,and most famously, As You Like It: All the world s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. act 2, scene 7, lines DISCUSSION QUESTIONS How would you characterize the relationship between the Catholic Church and the theater? How did the Church use the stage to support its authority, and how was the theater viewed as a threat by Rome?

20 Questions and Activities Essay Topics 1. Who are famous Tartuffes of today that is, people who pretend to be upright in order to get money, property, or power? 2. Name several genuinely pious, upright people in recent years who gained worldwide recognition because of their goodness. 3. It appears that Orgon is not a good judge of character, for he accepts as gospel everything that Tartuffe says. 4. Who is the most sensible person in the play? 5. In what ways does the play resemble a modern situation comedy? 6. Do you believe Molière ridicules religion in the play? Source: Classroom Activities Designing Tartuffe: Character Collage * Theatrical visual designers, such as those who create a play production s scenery, costumes, makeup, and lights must find ways to communicate their preliminary design ideas to the director with whom they collaborate. One form of visual communication is collage, in which cutout images and text, material/fabric, and other small objects are glued to a piece of paper to symbolize the world of the play, its inhabitants, and/or its themes. Ask your students make a character collage of the character from Molière s Tartuffe that they find the most compelling or interesting. They will need an 8½ x 11 sheet of paper (either colored paper or paper that can be painted), magazines with visual images/ photographs, scissors, additional color paper for cutouts, colored pencils or paint for a background, and glue. They should think about how they might use color, images, and text to symbolize the character and what happens to him or her in the course of the play Educators might also opt for their students to create electronic collages by utilizing PowerPoint technology and images gleaned from the Internet. Students should be given time to show their finished collages to the class and to explain how the objects and images in their collages express and symbolize their favorite character from Tartuffe. Qui était Molière?: Molière and the French Renaissance. * To prepare your students for Molière s Tartuffe and to deepen their level of understanding of and appreciation for the period in which it was written, have your students research, either in groups or individually, the life, times and works of Molière. Topics for a study of Molière and seventeenthcentury France and French culture might include: Molière (born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) birth, family and education early career rise to prominence Louis XIV Cardinal Richelieu The French Academy French Neoclassical tragedy French farce Pierre Corneille Jean Racine Hôtel du Bourgogne Théâtre Italien (commedia dell arte) Alexandrine verse Jansenism The School for Wives The Misanthrope The Would-be Gentlemen The Imaginary Invalid Have your students teach one another about their individual or group topics vial oral and illustrated (i.e., posters or PowerPoint) reports. Following the presentations ask your students to reflect upon their research process and discoveries. *Source: McCarter Theater Audience Guide 20 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

21 Questions and Activities The Challenge of the Ending At the climax of Tartuffe, Orgon and his family are suddenly saved from certain ruin by an outside influence. This kind of ending in dramaturgical/ playwriting terms is called a deus ex machina (or god from the machine ). In the theatre of the Ancient Greeks, tragedies were often resolved by the entrance of a god who arrived on stage via machinery just in time to save the good or wronged or to punish evil. Today, the term is used to refer to the resolution of a conflict through the intervention of a person or thing from outside of the dramatic action; it is often used critically to suggest an inorganic/artificial or less than dramatically compelling resolution. Ask your students to describe the turn of events in Tartuffe that can be categorized as a deus ex machine. Do you think it is a compelling or suitable resolution to the action and ending of the play? Why or why not? Why do you think Molière may have chosen to end the play this way? If it is not already common knowledge, alert your students to the fact that the original production/script of Tartuffe was condemned and censored by religious members of the court. The version of the play that has survived has a revised ending which was not Molière s original artistic intention. Ask your students to consider a better, perhaps more artful or organic, way of ending Tartuffe. Have them script their own versions of the play from Act V, scene iv on to the end. In a subsequent class meeting have them cast their classmates in roles for lively reading of the new endings. Discuss the joys and challenges of trying to improve upon the great French dramatist s art. Source: McCarter Theater Audience Guide Two Truths and a Lie Start by modeling the process by telling two truths and a lie (preferably something that could plausibly be true) about yourself. Ex statements such as: I have two kids. I once won a pie-eating contest. When I was ten, I hated science. Allow the class to guess which is the lie. Allow about a minute for every student to think of two truths and a lie about himself/ herself. Have the students form groups of four, preferably with people they do not know well (or assign at random). They should sit together for the remainder of the activity. Within each group, students must first learn each other s names. Then they are to tell each other two things that are true about themselves and one that is a lie (preferably something that MIGHT be true). The others in the group must determine which the lie is. Allow about five to six minutes for the groups to complete this. Tell each group they must choose two of the truths about the members of their group and one lie to share with the class. Have them write them down legibly. For example: One member of our group once traveled to Russia, one member etc. After the game, ask the class the following questions: Were you able to guess the lie correctly? If so, how? What sort of lies were the most convincing? Big lies? Little lies? Why? Why do you think Orgon had trouble seeing Tartuffe s lies? Why did the other household members not believe Tartuffe? Source: twotruths.cfm 21 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

22 Questions and Activities Dear Dad, Have You Gone Mad?! Have each of your students take on the persona of either Damis or Mariane to write a letter to his or her father, Orgon. The letter must be imperative in nature, address the familial discord in the house of late, offer opinion as to the source of the conflict, and attempt to offer remedies or advice on how to resolve the situation and return family to its previous state of harmony. Students should feel that they have free-reign to update or relocate the dramatic scenario, although they should stay true to general ideas of the world of the play. Students letters may be read aloud for the class and discussed for the merits of their argument, attention to dramatic detail and imagination and originality of their authors. Source: McCarter Theater Audience Guide Status Quo Engage the student actors in a conversation regarding status. What does it mean in life (at school, at home or in the wider community)? What does it mean on stage (between characters or between actors and the audience). We discuss how status can affect the body language, the voice, the dialogue...the overall truthful portrayal of a character. Materials A deck of cards (in order Ace through King, you will only need one suit) 8-10 chairs double sided tape Space Required Medium to large open space Instructions 1. Split the class in half. One set of student actors becomes the audience and the other half sit in chairs that are set up in a line. The facilitator places a playing card on the forehead of each participant (with a small piece of double sided tape) without the participant seeing what card it is. 2. Instruct the actors that an Ace is the highest status in the room and TWO is the lowest. When the facilitator claps his/her hands, the actors are to mill around the room as if they are at a social engagement, meeting new people for the first time. They are to treat the other people at the party according to the status (card ranking) on their forehead. They are to quickly adapt their character by responding to the cues given to them by their fellow actors. 3. The first round is silent and entirely delivered through body language and facial expression. Freeze. 4. Clap again and the second round introduces improvised dialogue. Freeze. 5. The actors sit back down in their seats and are asked to sit from low to high status, having to guess what external status they have been given. One at a time actors remove their cards and discuss if their predictions were correct, how they guessed their status, how they were treated and how it felt. 6. Large class discussion and the groups switch. The entire activity is repeated for this new group. 7. Assessment in the form of reflection in class discussion. A Noise Within has developed these activities according to The Common Core State Standards for Language, Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing at the 9 th grade level and the 21 st Century Learning and Thinking Skills. 22 A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season

23 Tartuffe: Resource Guide PHOTO BY CRAIG SCHWARTZ. ARTICLES Tartuffe: Attacking Hypocrisy, Not Religion By Jerry L. Crawford From Insights, 1993http:// education/studyguides/tartuffe/tartuffeattack.html#. Up-b3id5H3A Tartuffe: A Memorable Imposter By James Mills From Midsummer Magazine, education/studyguides/tartuffe/tartuffeimposter.html#. Up-b2id5H3A The King s Play: Censorship and the Politics of Performance in Moliere s Tartuffe Michael Spingler Comparative Drama Vol. 19, No. 3 (Fall 1985), pp Published by: Comparative Drama Article Stable URL: edu/stable/ Tartuffe and the Comic Principle in Molière W. G. Moore The Modern Language Review Vol. 43, No. 1 (Jan., 1948), pp Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Article Stable URL: Is Tartuffe a Comic Character? Brian Nicholas The Modern Language Review Vol. 75, No.4 (Oct., 1980), pp Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Article Stable URL: stable/ WEBSITES html FILM ( Additional Resources from McCarter Theatre de Sales, Saint Francis. Introduction to the Devout Life, translated by John K. Ryan. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, Gossman, Lionel. Le Tartuffe. In Men and Masks. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, Lough, John. An Introduction to Seventeenth Century France. New York: David McKay Company, Maland, David. Culture and Society in Seventeenth Century France. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd., Pardailhe-Galabrun, Annik. The Birth of Intimacy. Cambridge: Polity Press, Toporkov, Vasily Osipovich. Tartuffe. In Stanislavski in Rehearsal, translated by Christine Edwards. New York: Theatre Arts Books, Trout, Andrew. City on the Seine. New York: St. Martin s Press, Wilbur, Richard. The Misanthrope and Tartuffe. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, A Noise Within 2013/14 Repertory Season