Word: orgon
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...Rigault carves his laughs out of the rich lines of iambic pentameter, relying very heavily on the full tone range of his actor's voices, their bodies--especially arm gesturing--and the expanse of the stage. A fine example comes in one of the very first scenes when Orgon, the master of the house, returns from a business trip and asks the maid, Dorine, what has happened during his absence. She answers that his wife has been sick, indeed had to be bled. But Orgon is interested only in hearing about Tartuffe, the religious man he has gathered into...
...then there is some very fine slap-stick. The credit here belongs wholly to de Rigault as Moliere has left vitually no stage directions. The greatest moment comes at the climax of the play when Orgon discovers that the trusted, devout Tartuffe is a hypocritical lecher thirsting after his wife. As Tartuffe lunges forward to embrace her, the virtuous lady steps quickly aside and Tartuffe lands in her husband's no longer quite so fond embrace...
...Orgon's daughter Marianne and her fiancee Valere, the play's romantic young couple, almost lose each other in a bull-headed argument. Finally it is the common-sensical maid, Dorine, who brings them back together...
...playing with Lithgow, most distinguished themselves. Laurence Senelick's Orgon never quite crystalized by himself; but he was hilarious as Tartuffe manipulated him. Elizabeth Cole's Elmire, competent with others, was delicious in the arms of the hypocrite. And even those who didn't speak to him, spoke more naturally in Tartuffe's scenes...
More significantly, he is the stinking essence of the world's wisdom-that a crime is no crime unless one gets caught. He could con the forked tongue out of a snake. Under Tartuffe's spell, Orgon permits the disruption of his household, disinherits his son, signs away all his property, affiances his daughter to Tartuffe, and sweeps his wife (Salome Jens) into Tartuffe's sweaty-palmed lechery. This is madness, as the superbly sane Molière knew. And like an enchanted healer from some pre-psychoanalytic age, Molière devotes his play to making...