Review: Tartuffe by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Have you discovered the Mary Moody Northen Theatre at St. Edward's University yet? It's probably the best-kept open theatre secret in town. For decades the university's theatre department has brought Equity actors to work with their undergraduates. Early on the department brought those pros in from either the East Coast or the Left Coast, and results could be colorful and unpredictable. In recent years, and certainly over the last decade, the St. Ed's teachers have recruited Equity actors resident in Austin or nearby.
This has assured more predictable results. The practice has also provided talented St. Ed's undergrads such as Nigel O'Hearn, Jacob Trussell, Andrew Cannata and Nathan Brockett with bridges to local theatre companies ranging from Austin Playhouse, the Zach Theatre and Austin Shakespeare to the various Austin indie bands of thespians.
On the face of it, it's a winning stragey, particularly for a school without an MFA program. But at times I've had fleeting doubts about lost opportunities.
The MMNT production of Tartuffe is a richly entertaining evening, a 17th century French farce in alexandrine couplets in a bouncily graceful verse translation by Ranjit Bolt, cleverly updated to contemporary Texas. With four ace Equity (*) actors having a wonderful time occupying key roles, the audience is gloriously entertained - but those eager undergtrads are mostly granted the leftovers, if they get onstage at all.
Southwestern University did a laudable Tartuffe last November, with a lively cast of students directed by Austin's much-appreciated Fishneys (Liz Fisher and Robert Matney). I didn't write a review because I saw one of the final performances. I doubly appreciated their sparkle becasuse of their youth and their courage in those challenging roles.
St. Ed's current production, shaped by director David Long's wit and comic inventiveness, was bound to shine, and it certainly does. And with a set imagined by Ia Entsterä, the town's busiest and perhaps most creative stage designer, this Tartuffe dazzles, as well. (Take the time before the show or at intermission to examine the photos displayed on tables and bureaus. Listen for the door chime in the second act; it's a sublime comic moment in this creative vision. And enjoy that gleeful trick at the curtain call, while you're at it!)
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known as Molière, was dismayed that he had to rewrite this elegant comedy twice before the French ecclesiastical authorities stopped pressing King Louis XIV to prohibit it. We certainly lost a marvelously satirical view of priestly hypocrisy, judging from the Tartuffe who has come down to us, a sycophantic phony who wormed his way into the heart of bourgeois paterfamilias Orgon (Jamie Goodwin (*)).
The show begins with a rant by the family's matriarch Mmme Pernelle (Barbara Chisholm(*)). Her dismissive rancor with the speed and authority of a machine gun may disorient those in the public who didn't realize they were in for rhymed verse. Don't worry at her abrupt departure, for Chisholm (*) returns in the final scenes. It's ironic that she's really too young for the role -- considering that the students usually face the same casting problem.
Orgon's wife Elmire (Liz Beckham(*)) is stepmother to his children the sweet ingénue Marianne (Aly Jones, '15) and Valère (Jon Richardson, '14). Tartufffe's hot-blooded stalking of Mme Orgon -- Elmire -- provides lots of sexy farce fun. And stalwart David Stahl (*) hangs in there as the concerned brother who tries to bring besotted head of household Orgon (Goodwin(*)) to his senses.
Director David Long has a keen sense for speed, timing and physical comedy, so we're never put off or long bewildered by the vigorously metrical wordplay. Dorine the clever serving girl (Vanessa Guadiana, '15) delivers that classic character type with emphasis and a marked Tejano accent that's comic but at times puts a complicating veil over the tricky language.
Let's take a moment, however, to appreciate José Antonio Rodríguez in the title role. Rodríguez has stature, quiet confidence and a superb mastery of delivery, deftly setting sentences, thoughts, rhymes and subtext. At no moment is he outdone or overshadowed by those formidable Equity players onstage. His Tartuffe's a young cad, certainly, but one with the smooth assurance of a born con man. The precisely calibrated and very funny seduction scene in the second act works so well because director and actors Rodríguez, Goodwin (*) and Beckham (*) carry it out by manifesting a superb sense at each moment of their respective characters' developing motivations and emotion.
This Tartuffe is full of physical business, verbal grace and clowning. It's a lot of fun.
Tartuffe
by Molière
Mary Moody Northen Theatre
