Tartuffe Summary 2 Essays - Film, Tartuffe, Vocal Music,

Tartuffe Summary 2 Molire was born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molire was born in 1622 in Paris, France and died there in 1673 (Molire, p.1). He spent his life writing plays, acting, and managing the stage, according to Encyclopedia Britannica and is known as the greatest of all writers of French comedy (p. 1). Recently, I was able to see one of his best known plays of all times on campus at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma. According to the program given to me at the theatre that evening, the play was transcribed into the English language by a man by the name of Richard Wilbur (Molires Tartuffe). Tartuffe (also sometimes referred to as The Imposter) is set in the realm of seventeenth-century Parisian high society during the reign of King Louis XIV (Tartuffe, p.1). This paper is a summary of my experience at the theatre. The cast of the play at Oklahoma Baptist University was performed by current students and previous students and consisted of thirteen different people in acting roles. In addition, there were eight members of the artistic staff and twelve members of the production staff who helped to make the production a huge success. The director for this production was Dr. Jeffrey Wells, PhD who is an Associate Professor of Performance and the Director of OBU Theatre and has been the director for greater than twenty different full-length plays at the college level (Molires Tartuffe). The characters in the play were few but, they were extremely powerful. There was Tartuffe, the villain who deceived everyone into thinking he was a devout Christian focused only on the things of the Lord. In reality, he was a hypocrite who took advantage of all of the other characters as used them as a means to his own end. Then, there was the father, who believed everything that Tartuffe said and allowed him to move into his home and entrusted him with his most valuable possessions. Ironically, Tartuffe had been making secret advances to the fathers wife all along. There were also male and female siblings present in the play who tried to tell their father that this man was not to be trusted. The son was especially vocal about it. Another character in the play was the mother of the Orgon, the father. She too had fallen totally for everything that Tartuffe had told them. In addition, there was Valre, who was to marry the daughter, Mariane. One of the calmest and most endearing charact ers was the brother-in-law who tried to keep the rest of the family calm and acting with reason. One of the funniest of characters was the daughters maid, Dorine. Additionally, there were a few of other characters M. Loyal, the process server who brought them eviction papers, the two maids of the grandmother, and the kings man who gave them the greatest news of all. When the play began, the grandmother was singing the praises of the houseguest Tartuffe and encouraging her family members to become more like him because he was above reproach. She rails at them when the house members try to tell her differently concerning Tartuffe. She refuses to believe and leaves the castle. Then, the members of the castle discussed Tartuffe and how Orgon was being deceived. They came up with a plan to confront him about it. Soon, the father enters, going about his business. As various members try to talk to him, he can think of nothing but Tartuffe. It was during this scene that the father told his daughter that he would like for her to marry Tartuffe instead of her fianc. Mariane was extremely distraught by this; however, she did not have the guts to speak up to her father about it. Before long, Orgon takes his leave and the fianc comes barreling in because he has heard the news of his broken engagement with the daughter of Orgon. Dorine, having overheard all t hat had surpassed, deemed to join with the young couple and started to formulate a plan to expose the hypocrisy of Tartuffe. The next scene, found the wife in the dining room and Tartuffe coming into the room. At that time, Tartuffe begins to talk about his love for