TARTUFFE. In rep to 20 April.

National Theatre

TARTUFFE
by Moliere, new version by Ranjit Bolt

Lyttelton Theatre In rep to 20 April 2002
Runs 2hr 35min One interval

TICKETS 020 7452 3000
Review Timothy Ramsden 26 March

Design excess apart, this is a fine, funny Moliere with two well-balanced central performances.When the RSC produced Moliere's comic attack on religious hypocrisy they cast Nigel Hawthorne, an actor suited to realistic rectitude as Orgon, the wealthy householder duped by the pious-seeming Tartuffe. The title role went to the fizzing Anthony Sher, who exploded midway through the comedy with a force that ripped apart the carefully constructed family with a display of theatrical fireworks.

Lindsay Posner's production puts Orgon into the hands of David Threlfall, an actor strong on the fizz himself. Once his religious mode has been swept away he turns in a glint-eyed fury that makes his brother-in-law's advocacy of moderation seem unusually relevant.

While, appearing in stately procession down stage, Martin Clunes is a stolid creation. When he disrobes for a sexual assault on Orgon's wife the nappy and the raw-red flagellated shoulders reveal distorted passion, as does the squelching saliva accompanying his demolition of half a chicken in his secret little room.

But his gravel-like, controlled voice and his body's ability to curl into pieta-like poses almost of its own volition make him a threatening presence. It's something summed up visually by his final act return in formal priestly white, the public image restored, after his discovery in something-like flagrante.

Threlfall and Clunes thus make a natural partnership, the one's authority believably deceiving the other's wayward emotionalism. And they're surrounded by strong characterisation right from Margaret Tyzack's opening tirade against everyone – it's clear Orgon inherited his mother's inability to listen while rushing to judgement.

The only doubt's over Clare Holman's wife. Doubtless in rehearsal her physical come-ons when trying to reveal Tartuffe's real nature worked well, but in formal period costume the modern body gestures have an anachronistic, ill-fitting effect that mar an otherwise strong performance.

Moliere's characters in translation used to sound like grammar school people on best behaviour. That's all gone with the Crimp and Bolt school of personality translation. Unlike Martin Crimp, Bolt doesn't relocate Moliere in the modern world. His eight syllable rhyming lines bounce along with witty versatility.

Moliere's politically correct hymn to Louis XIV's magnificence is emphasised by a closing vision of the monarch descending amid Ashley Martin-Davis's baroque designs with their somewhat unnecessary brainstorm words and phrases on hypocrisy picked out in neon round the stage.

Madame Pernelle: Margaret Tyzack
Elmire: Clare Holman
Damis: Tom Goodman-Hill
Mariane: Melanie Clark Pullen
Cleante: Julian Wadham
Dorine: Debras Gillett
Flipote: Marianne Morley
Orgon: David Threlfall
Valere: Sam Troughton
Tartuffe: Martin Clunes
Monsieur Loyal: Nicholas Day
Officeer: Martin Chamberlain
Policemen: Andrew McDonald, Richard Hollis
Laurent: Scott Frazer
King Louis XIV: Nick Sampson
Other Parts: Sarah Hay, Suzanne Heathcote, Deborah Winckles
Boy Singers: Alexander Deng/Michael Fenton/Callum Finn/Jeremy Franklin/Robert Jones/Matthew Tennyson

Director: Lindsay Posner
Designer: Ashley Martin-Davis
Lighting: Wolfgang Goebbel
Sounds: Christopher Shutt
Music: Gary Yershon
Music Director: Mark Bousie
Movement: Jane Gibson
Voice: Patsy Rodenburg

2002-03-27 08:02:18