Word: orgonized
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Since genius, like a celebrity, commands recognition even in dark glasses, all of this is present, if not clear, in the Lincoln Center production. The man who exists to be brought to his senses in Tartuffe is Orgon (Larry Gates), a complacently typical bourgeois. Orgon courts innocence by association, and his mind's eye is so weak that it persistently mistakes the appearance of sanctity for the assurance of goodness. Tartuffe (Michael O'Sullivan), his chosen saint-in-residence, is a pious fraud and an unparalleled hypocrite...
...each with a servant, plus the wife's parents make up the eight personages in the play. Moliere's chief concern, as usual, was the portrayal of character rather than the construction of plot. And rarely does one of his characters change in the course of a play (like Orgon in Tartuffe). Here, there is no real denouement; Dandin finally exclaims that the best thing for him to do would be to go drown himself head first. But of course he won't and he will go right on being outwitted by his wife. For it was Moliere's thesis...
Tartuffe. Probably no actor alive can make one physiognomy do for two faces better than Emil Jannings, so that it is fitting he should act the hypocrite of Moliere's story. Unfortunately, his ability to make himself look repulsive while duping the helpless Orgon, is hardly enough to galvanize the play...
...Perrin's skill, his voice, face and every gesture, met perfectly the thought and undercurrent of feeling of Orgon. Great praise...
...title role was played by Mr. Robinson. It is very difficult indeed to project across the footlights, so widely differing characters as the three developed in this one. The man of God, as seen by Orgon and Madame Pernelle, the insinuating rascal ready to seduce the wife of his closest friend and greatest benefactor; and the barefaced scoundrel of the last act were all successfully portrayed...