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Moliere's "Tartuffe" is one of the comic monuments of dramatic literature.
Scathingly witty and oddly touching, it's as fresh today as when its debut 350 years ago got its author into holy hot water with church authorities.

Happily, Actors' Summit's revival is specifically and agreeably calculated - despite some nagging shortcomings - to render the timeless pertinence of the play accessible to a contemporary audience.

Moliere stays forever modern because the targets of his laser-accurate satire on human foibles are still around. We have as of yet no shortage of pettifogging lawyers, profit-hungry doctors and wealthy chumps who exalt opportunistic phonies.

The quarry in "Tartuffe" is religious hypocrisy and its gullible victims. In the age of Jimmys Swaggart and Bakker, and myriad sects with brainwashed followers, it's hardly an antiquated concern.

Tartuffe is a crafty bum who employs a sleazy talent for fake piety to worm his way into a well-to-do man's household. Against the outraged opposition of his family, Orgon is transformed into a hypnotized dupe who worships the conniving intruder as a saint.

Finally giving away his daughter and estate to Tartuffe, Orgon is only saved by overhearing the lecherous fraud attempting to seduce his wife.

Director Neil Thackaberry emphasizes the broader comic aspects of character and situation, somewhat neglecting the play's emotional depths. It's nonetheless a clean, attentive production that prudently trusts tradition.

Following the general tenor, Tom Fulton plays the title character as a comedian might. Overtly smarmy, the actor sports a constant twinkle to let us know he knows he's being comically outrageous.

The expert yet cutesy self-referential performance had at least one Saturday night audience lapping it up.

Doing double duty, Thackaberry brings a confident decency to Orgon, his bluster unthreatening and his human instincts discernible - though he could find more instances to reveal them.

As his wife, Kristie Lang has a mature grace and adorns costumer MaryJo Alexander's handsome gown. Sally Groth is energetic as Moliere's standard sassy servant. She might, however, gear back and let the role carry her instead of the reverse.

In a large cast, Mary Jane Nottage, Diane Mull and John Fairbairn contribute substantially.

The evening's most genuinely Moliere-ish performance comes from Joe Gunderman as Orgon's reasonable brother-in-law. Controlled and pointed, he delivers the playwright's lethal thrusts with unexaggerated precision.

The effect is to remind us that, in a world whose idea of corrective comedy has grown simultaneously more blandly PC and vulgarly uncivilized, there was once a powerful satirist both humane and hysterical.

Damico is a free-lance writer in Cleveland

THE AKRON BEACON JOURNAL:

Wicked humor abounds in classic comedy
Actors' Summit version of Moliere's `Tartuffe' offers plenty of laughs
By Kerry Clawson
Beacon Journal staff writer

You can't help but be ``Tartufficated,'' or snared, by the wicked humor in Moliere's Tartuffe at Actors' Summit in Hudson.

In the classic comedy, saucy maid Dorine (Sally Groth) coins that word to describe how the hypocritical impostor Tartuffe has snowed over his patron, Orgon, and is about to sink his teeth into Orgon's daughter.

After 45 minutes of hearing Orgon's family vilify Tartuffe, we're expecting the devil himself. But we get a big laugh when actor Tom Fulton's Tartuffe finally comes burping down the stairs in a most ludicrous fashion.

Once he realizes he has an audience, the hypocrite starts mouthing off in a false display of piety about his hair, shirt and scourge (whip).

Under the direction of Neil Thackaberry, Fulton's Tartuffe is a man of oily desperation -- more ridiculous than villainous. He's unctuous in both look and manner, from his haphazard, oily comb-over to his lecherous advances on Elmire, Orgon's wife.

Tartuffe wears a huge, oversized cross around his neck and a rosary dangling from his belt. From his servile smile to the humorous arch of his eyebrows, Fulton is beguiling.

This is the kind of greasy guy who enjoys covering Elmire's bosom with a hanky, just as an excuse to touch her. Two wooing scenes between Tartuffe and Elmire contain several naughty double-entendres that both Fulton and actress Kristie Lang (Elmire) carry off most humorously.

Fulton provides new meaning to the words ``pregnant pause'' when his Tartuffe tells Elmire ``Nothing lifts my... spirits higher'' during a particularly heated moment.

This comedy has a couple of charades going on. In the climax, the play's greatest scene, Tartuffe is exposed in more ways than one.

A number of characterizations make this play great fun. Sally Groth is irresistibly insolent as maid Dorine, who inserts herself into all the family affairs. Orgon repeatedly tries to put her in her place, but we know who really runs the show.

The talented Groth, whose face is almost too elegantly radiant to be that of a maid's, is otherwise perfectly suited for this role. Dorine's teasing of both Orgon and the naive Mariane is relentless: This servant's quite proud of her sauciness. Groth lets us in on the big joke with a well-timed big wink.

Other humorous characters include Thackaberry's pig-headed Orgon and Mary Jane Nottage's ill-tempered Pernelle, Orgon's mother.

The only thing that threw me off in this show was Maggie Morgan's gaping-mouthed, vacant-eyed servant, Flipotte. This space cadet act was a bit overdone.

Translator Wayne Turney, an Actors' Summit actor and board member, has provided audiences highly accessible language with this work. Humor is abundant in lines such as this from maid Dorine to the young Mariane:

"...A dutiful daughter mustn't be so spunky.
Even if her father wants her to marry a monkey,
She must obey.''

Tartuffe, which satirizes religious hypocrisy, was scandalous to the powerful clergy of the 1660s. It doesn't carry near the same controversy today, but we can enjoy the biting comedy while admiring Moliere for being a rebel in his time. Moliere first performed the play before King Louis XIV in 1664. The piece was banned for an additional five years before it was allowed an official public performance.

Actors' Summit's performance is set in the Napoleonic era of the early 1800s. Once again, costume designer MaryJo Alexander has outdone herself with gorgeous empire-waist gowns that feature elaborate brocades and trims. In her attention to detail, she even has husband Thackaberry in a huge maroon sash tied over his waistcoat, Napoleonic style.

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