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.