{"id":709954,"date":"2025-11-19T02:51:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T23:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=709954"},"modified":"2025-11-19T02:51:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T23:51:23","slug":"on-opposite-ends-of-manhattan-a-tale-of-two-tartuffes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=709954","title":{"rendered":"On Opposite Ends of Manhattan, a Tale of Two Tartuffes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Arts<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

On Opposite Ends of Manhattan, a Tale of Two Tartuffe<\/em>s<\/h1>\n
By <\/span>Christopher Barnard<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

November 18, 2025<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  • \n
  • \n
  • \n
  • <\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    \n
    <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    \n
    Andr\u00e9 De Shields stars in a production of Tartuffe<\/em> at House of the Redeemer through November 23. A separate production, starring Matthew Broderick, begins performances at New York Theatre Workshop on November 28.<\/span>Photo: Ashley Pena<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n

    Swindling hypocrites are having a moment this season. Two distinct off-Broadway productions of the 1664 Moli\u00e8re play Tartuffe<\/em>\u2014in which an ingratiating, self-righteous fraud cons a wealthy French aristocrat out of house and home\u2014bookend each other this month; one production, starring Andr\u00e9 De Shields, will end its run November 23 at House of the Redeemer on East 95th Street; the other, adapted by Lucas Hnath (A Doll\u2019s House, Part 2<\/em>; Dana H.<\/em>), stars Matthew Broderick and begins previews at the New York Theatre Workshop on the 28th.<\/p>\n

    The teams behind both shows\u2014which only became aware of each other over the summer\u2014welcome the concurrence. \u201cI believe in the gods of serendipity. That\u2019s not chance. That\u2019s not luck. That is the belief that what belongs to you is on its way to you and cannot miss you unless you deliberately avoid it,\u201d De Shields proclaims, in cosmic terms, of this season of Tar-two-ffes.<\/p>\n

    \u201cHopefully there are enough New Yorkers that we can both do it,\u201d offers Broderick. \u201cI think the town is big enough. I hope so.\u201d<\/p>\n

    De Shields was apprised of the NYTW production when he went to see Maybe Happy Ending<\/em> with his good friend and Hadestown<\/em> costar Amber Gray in June. \u201cShe says, \u2018Guess what I\u2019m going to be doing?\u2019 I said, \u2018What?\u2019 She said, \u2018Tartuffe<\/em>, and I\u2019m going to be Elmire.\u2019 I had to bite my tongue. And I said, \u2018That\u2019s wonderful.\u2019 And she said, \u2018What are you up to?\u2019 I almost exploded with laughter.\u201d As it happens, De Shields\u2019s Elmire\u2014wife of Orgon, Tartuffe\u2019s gullible victim\u2014is also played by an Amber: Amber Iman.<\/p>\n

    Both productions began preparations last fall, with Keaton Wooden, the uptown director, getting in touch with De Shields for a reading and Sarah Benson, the NYTW director, asking Hnath if he would be interested in reworking the piece.<\/p>\n

    \n
    \"Image<\/span><\/div>\n
    <\/p>\n

    Associate director Wasif Sami, director Sarah Benson, and playwright Lucas Hnath in rehearsals for Tartuffe<\/em> at New York Theatre Workshop.<\/p>\n

    <\/span>Photo: Marcus Middleton<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n

    For Wooden, who grew up the son of a minister in Indiana, the idea of doing Tartuffe<\/em> had been kicking around for a while. \u201cOnce 2016 hit, I felt like we were really living Tartuffe<\/em>. America has always had a pretty dangerous religious wing to itself. Whenever faith and power merge together, it is a dangerous result.\u201d The character of Tartuffe exploits religion and false piety to inveigle himself into Orgon\u2019s confidences\u2014much to the horror of Elmire and their children, who see right through him.<\/p>\n

    Of Moli\u00e8re\u2019s works, Tartuffe<\/em> is perhaps less celebrated and produced than, say, The Misanthrope<\/em>, The Miser<\/em>, or The Imaginary Invalid<\/em>, making this season\u2019s double-act all the more curious. Or is<\/em> it? From Delvey to Donald, scammers of every stripe abound these days. \u201cWe are now at a point where people have to be reminded about not only the hypocrisy under which we are forced to live, but our own hypocrisy. If you sit there and experience this play and don\u2019t think of Trumpism and how it is raping American democracy, then we are not doing our work,\u201d De Shields says.<\/p>\n

    \n
    \"Image<\/span><\/div>\n
    <\/p>\n

    Amber Iman and Andr\u00e9 De Shields in Tartuffe<\/em> at House of the Redeemer.<\/p>\n

    <\/span>Photo: Joan Marcus<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n

    On that note: The two productions diverge in their handling of the current administration. \u201cOne of my concerns initially is that I\u2019m not that interested in a version of the play that does an easy equation of Tartuffe<\/em> equals Trump, which I know is the expectation to a certain degree,\u201d says Hnath. \u201cI also found that I had a little hesitance around the one take on the play that is to sort of make Christianity an easy target, which I actually don\u2019t think the play is even inherently trying to do\u2026. It\u2019s a play about belief and how people decide what they believe. It\u2019s a play about stubbornness.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n
    \"Image<\/span><\/div>\n
    <\/p>\n

    Moli\u00e8re performing Tartuffe<\/em> at the salon of Ninon de l\u2019Enclos.<\/p>\n

    <\/span>Photo: Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n

    Hnath had already been thinking of writing a play in the style of Moli\u00e8re when Benson emailed him last September. \u201cI had a file on my computer called \u2018Moli\u00e8re plays,\u2019 where I had been putting some writing towards an idea about a play in his style,\u201d Hnath says. After sending other writers Benson\u2019s way, he kept dabbling for a couple of months before eventually signing on himself. \u201cI basically worked on it every day for nine months. It was intense and it was the most fun I\u2019ve had in a long time working on anything.\u201d At the same time, he was putting together a writers\u2019 room for the Apple TV show The Dealer<\/em>, his first television project.<\/p>\n

    Working from an English translation from the 1930s by the felicitously-named Curtis Hidden Page, Hnath went line by line, parsing each sentence\u2019s meaning and then coming up with rhymes or slant rhymes to form couplets, triplets, and so on. The translation used by the uptown production, by Ranjit Bolt from 2003, is all in rhyming couplets.<\/p>\n

    Adapting the piece while casting was ongoing allowed Hnath to write with specific actors in mind, particularly Broderick, David Cross (who plays Orgon), and the drag performer Roy Haylock\u2014a.k.a. Bianca Del Rio\u2014who plays the elderly Madame Pernelle and opens the play. \u201cMy touchpoint into understanding how scene one would work was, well, the library is open and she\u2019s going to read everybody for filth,\u201d says Hnath with a laugh of the latter character. \u201cI started writing it in Bianca\u2019s voice, but I thought, There\u2019s no universe in which she is going to do this.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

    For Broderick, a two-time Tony winner, the intimacy of the 199-seat NYTW space\u2014and the rangy group of actors and other creatives, including choreographer Raja Feather Kelly and composer Heather Christian, attached to Benson\u2019s production\u2014represent a welcome change. \u201cI\u2019ve been doing this a long time, so I very often work with friends and people who I know,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is a little bit going outside of that. That\u2019s exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    \"Image<\/span><\/div>\n
    <\/p>\n

    David Cross and Matthew Broderick in rehearsals for Tartuffe<\/em> at New York Theatre Workshop.<\/p>\n

    <\/span>Photo: Marcus Middleton<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

    For De Shields\u2019s part, Tartuffe<\/em> belonged to \u201cthe European canon of antagonists and protagonists\u201d that he was eager to master early in his career. \u201cThat has a lot to do with what I wasn\u2019t considered appropriate for or allowed to dream about,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat I did as a young man was make sure that I would be literate, so that my would-be oppressor would always understand what I am saying, and I would always understand what my would-be oppressor was not<\/em> saying, you got me?\u201d<\/p>\n

    At 79, De Shields is in full flower (the official name of the production\u00a0is Andr\u00e9 De Shields Is Tartuffe<\/em>,\u00a0after all)\u2014seducing Iman\u2019s Elmire, dropping for a few push-ups, and serenading the audience with an invigorating rendition of Nina Simone\u2019s \u201cFeeling Good.\u201d (Cleverly, he often has a scripture-slash-script at hand, in case he needs a line or \u201cbible verse.\u201d) \u201cIt\u2019s like we are hosting a party and then we do a show during the party,\u201d explains Wooden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n

    All of this is experienced at close range in the baroque library of Redeemer, a Beaux-Arts mansion built by a Vanderbilt heiress and later deeded to the Episcopal Church. Wooden chose the space both for its resemblance to a 17th-century French chateau and because the money to rent it would go toward a spiritually minded nonprofit.<\/p>\n

    A view that both Tartuffe<\/em>s share is of the rich dramatic and comic possibilities in watching a sucker get conned, whatever comparisons one chooses to project onto it. \u201cTartuffe<\/em> is small-time. He\u2019s really just stealing money from one family,\u201d says Broderick. \u201cThis isn\u2019t about a guy taking over a nation or anything, hopefully. But I know that happens too.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

    Source URL: http:\/\/vogue.com\/article\/a-tale-of-two-tartuffes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Arts On Opposite Ends of Manhattan, a Tale of Two Tartuffes By Christopher Barnard November 18, 2025 Andr\u00e9 De Shields stars in a production of Tartuffe at House of the Redeemer through November 23. A separate production, starring Matthew Broderick, begins performances at New York Theatre Workshop on November 28.Photo: Ashley Pena Swindling hypocrites are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":709955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-709954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-vogue-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=709954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/709955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=709954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=709954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=709954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}