Tartuffe Essay, Research Paper

by

Moli?re

I was in the audience at the proformance of Tartuffe the first night it

played at Prairie High School. I really liked Tartuffe, i felt that the play was

pretty funny, and i liked how it started off by letting the audience know

Tartuffe is a fraud. I thought it was a very good production.

In Tartuffe we get pretty much a personal view into Orgons?s home, all

of the play takes place here. In Act I, scene 4, Tartuffe, coming into church

everyday and drawing attention with his loud prayer. In church Orgon would

offer him gifts and he would say they were twice too much and immediately

give some to the poor, again this kind of thing makes the audience realize

that Tartuffe is a fraud and that he has Madame Pernelle and Orgon

convinced that he is perfect. Sooner or later Orgon invites Tartuffe to live in

his home. Tartuffe immediality takes everything over. He convinces Orgon

to turn the house over to him along with some important papers. Orgon is

totally in the dark on whats going on and everytime a member of his family

tries to talk to him about it he gets all mad and the have a fight. Tartuffe?s

whole reason for being in the home is that he is trying to suduce Orgons

young wife. Everyone in his family knows what?s going on and they set

tartuffe up to take a fall. It works and Orgon throws Tartuffe out of the

house, But what we all forgot is that Orgon had signed everything over to

Tartuffe and Tartuffe has Orgon and his family evicted from the home.

Luckily, the good king sees through Tartuffe and has him arrested.

This play is set in Orgons home. The technical elements of this play

are used to set a mood for the play. Like when Tartuffe starts to take over

Orgons home, Tartuffes assisstant begins to change the rugs and drapes to the

color green, {Tartuffes main color}, and then when Tartuffe starts to lose his

control on Orgon, the maid come out and removes the green and replaces it

with the regular color. I really wasnt effected by the changing of the colors

until i thought back to what happened and realized why it happened. Then it

started to make a little better of a picture., of how Tartuffe was taking over

then losing control. The lighting of the play was all together good but what i

noticed is when Damis is playing a video game in the corner it was a little

hard to see and here him because everyone was in front of him and he was in

the corner. I liked the costumes used in Tartuffe I liked how Tartuffe and his

servant wore green and then Orgon started wearing green, then Orgon went

back to his regular clothes, and Tartuffe wore some pimp clothes, that we

neet i got how that was working from the start.

I dont quite recall many sound effects being used in the show, but

before and during intermission there was alot of classical music playing so

we got the idea that we were going to see a a play about rich people.

The way the playwrite uses Tartuffe in the beginning of the play to

make himself look like a hyprocrit, is one of the reasons that i liked the play

because i really think that when the audience doesnt like the villian it makes

for a way better play. And i think that the whole audience thought that

Tartuffe was a moron by the end of the first act. I really had a hard time

understanding the play while i was in the audience, because I was under the

influence that the play took place in the 14 or 15 hundreds. I didnt find out

intil the next day that the play had been moved up in time abit the the 1990?s.

I just felt that the old english used in the play didnt quite equal out with the

whole 1990?s thing. That was one of the only thing that i didnt like about

Tartuffe. I felt that it was trying to make a point, not to trust everyone

because looks can be decieving. I think that Tartuffe was really meant for

everyone to have a good laugh, there wasnt much else to it.

I think that since i already read the script, that is what made me

confused about the place in time that the play held. If i wouldnt have read

the play before I saw it I think i would have been a little more in tune with

what was going on.