Le Tartuffe

A master of deceit, Tartuffe cloaks himself in piety to infiltrate and exploit Orgon’s wealthy household. Like a chameleon, he senses weakness and slithers right in. From the comfort of his patron’s embrace, his rise is swift – fuelled by cunning and a keen sense of hypocrisy. Blinded by Tartuffe’s obscurantist rhetoric, Orgon refuses to see the venom seeping into his family’s heart. And so the poison takes hold, and the house begins to collapse from within.
« In Molière’s plays, the women are the compass. They fight for freedom, and through them, hope fuels resistance », notes director Jean Liermier.
First performed in 1664, Tartuffe uses the musicality of verse to deliver a fable still thunderously relevant today – in an era racked with egotism, extremism, sectarism and conspiracies of every shade.
Set against a minimalist backdrop, where the rigid lines of a family gripped by Orgon’s obsession stand starkly revealed – played here by the incomparable Gilles Privat! – Molière seems to whisper in our ear: fear, fascination, the urge to rewrite history and the survival of the fittest have always driven societies into suffering. Will we fall for Tartuffe once more?