www.culturebot.org: Lucas Hnath’s new adaptation of Molière’s farce, directed by Sarah Benson at New York Theater Workshop, complicates the notion of theater as escape by deploying recognizable faces whose personas exist alongside their characters rather than disappearing into them. Matthew Broderick plays Matthew Broderick as Tartuffe. As Madame Pernelle, Bianca Del Rio dons her signature beat. In a set resembling a tennis court, Orgon, Elmire, et al. bounce accusations and confessions back and forth, fighting for their version of truth.
2 comments:
This theatrical production is intriguing. The first aspect of the production that is shown in this article that caught my eye is the fact that it is being preformed in a tennis court. I have heard about a few productions being preformed in tennis court, and it is hard for my mind to wrap my head around what a production would look like in if i were to watch it in a tennis court. Also as a student who studied a lot of theatrical theory in undergrad. It is interesting to read about a production that originates from a structure that is designed to break what we have all to expect from a theatrical production. In undergrad I was continuously told that theatre is designed to step away from reality, and I then here is this production that is still doing that but in a different way. They are showing that a production can still be about reality, and still capture an audience.
I love that from the beginning the intention of the show is to transport you away. Despite this, in a positive sense, there still exists a very clear theme that is relevant to events today. I especially love how the characters are cast to intentionally play into their fame. When watching television shows, I sometimes struggle with differentiating a well-known actor between their person and their character. It is so fascinating to see how this is played into to warp your sense of reality and understanding. I really like the overall production concept and am fascinated by the measured steps that they took. The part that was especially interesting to me was how they worked with the translation of the script. As someone super interested in languages, the fact that they spoke to this is important. Each language has their own rhyming sequence and idioms, and to try to mimic that in a different language will, most of the time, do a disservice to the text. Not to say that it can not be done, but it is nice that they worked from a direct translation to make it their own.
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