Hilarious, anarchic Tartuffe proves Kosky is neither 'enfant' nor 'terrible'
Author: By JAMES WAITES
Date: 15/05/1997
Publication: Sydney Morning Herald

Tartuffe, Drama Theatre, May 15

There are two words which definitely do not apply to this Barrie Kosky
production of Tartuffe and they are "enfant" or "terrible". This, in fact,
is one of the classiest, cleverest, funniest, most visually stylish
productions to ever appear on the Drama Theatre stage.

Utterly Australian in its anarchic comic demeanour, it also happens to be
world class.

Sydneysiders have been obliged to absorb Kosky's reputation from a
distance via the director's provocative comments to the media, reports
from interstate, and through a sprinkling of stage works originating so
far from our familiar cultural base that an objective assessment of
Kosky's core talent has, until now, been quite impossible.

We might imagine a 17th-century Moliere classic to be equally foreign but,
in Kosky's hands, Tartuffe is virtually a new Australian play.

Colour is everywhere in Peter Corrigan's set. The gaudy and hypnotic
rhythms of a Bridget Riley abstract painting throw us off balance and
serve as a tantalising backdrop to what could well be the dysfunctional
Sylvania Waters household on Christmas Day.

Christmas in May, carols included - why not? The gap between the play's
European origins and Kosky's new-world interpretation could not be
underlined more boldly.

Christopher Hampton's excellently springy blank-verse translation has been
touched up with marvellous local references. But the biggest surprise
comes in an inserted coup-de-theatre in the closing scene, where Kosky
radically reworks the means through which Moliere achieves comic
resolution to the plot. Actor Russell Cheek's role in this adventure is
magnificent.

Tartuffe (Jacek Koman) is a hypocrite and shyster who, through his
religious posturing, fools Orgon (Paul Blackwell) into handing over just
about all he owns in the world while his family looks on horrified.

The production is superbly cast and, without exception, the performances
are stunning.

Melita Jurisic as Elmire, Orgon's wife, appears as if from the social
pages of a 1960s Women's Weekly. David Wenham solves the problem of
Cleante's inordinate moralising (the only way Moliere could have ever got
his satire past the censors) by playing the character up as a nagging
effeminate.

Mitchell Butel as Orgon's son, Damis, is a junkie and Judi Farr's grandma,
Madame Pernelle, struts the stage in a track suit and upswept blue hair.

Jacek Koman's Tartuffe is awesome: disgustingly daggy, tripping the stage
in socks and thongs, this Tartuffe inflates into a frightening monster
once his game has been revealed.

Discussing his acclaimed 1910 production of Moliere's Don Juan, Meyerhold
noted that a director did not have to stage a classic exactly as it had
been in its own time, but rather as a free composition in the spirit of
the theatre in which it was originally staged.

Against the more formal traditions of the day, Moliere eliminated
footlights and, to best effect his comic ambitions, pushed his actors as
far to the front of the stage as possible. This is exactly what Kosky does
here: this Tartuffe is in-your-face comedy in a boldly heightened style
that filters the raw crudeness of Australian humour through Kosky and
Corrigan's erudition and sophisticated tastes.

The production is fresh, immediate and hilarious; all the while quite
dangerously flinging around a poisonous sting in its tail.