Jean-Baptiste Poquelin—known since 17th-century Paris theater fame as Molière—composed his stern comedy Tartuffe in 1664. His angered purpose: attacking religious hypocrisy in the person of the grandly self-satisfied title character. He peppered-and-salted the frequently banned play in his favored format: rhymed couplets.
In 2025, Lucas Hnath, one of our foremost contemporary playwrights who never misses, has contributed a Tartuffe revival that consists of so many off-rhymed couplets they may outnumber the couplets properly rhymed. So much so that this “new version” is instantly a disorienting miss. It’s why I cannot in good conscience recommend the production unreservedly.
But before I get to that drastic drawback, it behooves me to declare there is much worthy of praise in a dust-off directed by Sarah Benson as if she’s having as much of a gleeful time mocking Molière’s religious era now as he had then.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★☆☆☆ review here.]
The saucy tale remains the same. A 1720 French household controlled by dim-witted Orgon (David Cross) has his immediate family greatly unsettled when their lord and master falls under the influence of Tartuffe (Matthew Broderick), who claims unadulterated Christian faith, although to most of the observers present he’s nothing more than a first-rate charlatan.
Second wife Elmire (Amber Gray), Elmire’s brother Cleante (Francis Jue), son Damis (Ryan J. Haddad), daughter Mariane (Emily Davis), and maid Dorine (Lisa Kron) see straight through Tartuffe. Beside Orgon their only opposition is Orgon’s dictatorial mother Mme Pernelle (prize-winning drag performer Bianca Del Rio.)
On the tasteful period set designed by dots and in gorgeous Enver Chakartash costumes, the ensemble thrives under mounting tension as Tartuffe increasingly takes over the household and the deed to it. This is while Orgon refuses to behave reasonably and, worse, becomes convinced that Mariane must marry Tartuffe instead of longtime fiancé Valère (Ikechukwu Ufomadu).
The actors perform as if totally Molière-immersed, with one exception: Broderick. The forever ingratiating actor usually gives the impression he’s listening to an inside joke. As a result, he’s always somehow imbued with an irresistible blithe presence. As Tartuffe, however, a man impressed with his own cunning, Broderick plays it straight. His Tartuffe is more impassive than cunning. Result: he’s effective but only to a moderate degree.
And now back to the format Hnath has chosen. It is as much made of lazy unrhymed couplets as it is of Molière’s scrupulously rhymed couplets. He’s produced a Tartuffe that veers so far from honoring the prolific Molière that he’s crossed the line to dishonoring him. He’s brought forth a comedy as literary tragedy.
But how did he come to decide that in the 21st-century he needn’t follow Molière’s rhyme scheme immaculately. Did he think that Molière’s current audience wouldn’t mind? Did he conclude that audiences new to Molière wouldn’t know the difference? Did he reason, as many have claimed before him, that it’s easier to rhyme in French, so why bother clinging to the academic conceit?
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but the play has been translated into English and other languages, as have all (or most?) of Molière’s timeless works. Perhaps the 1963 Richard Wilbur translation is exemplary proof it can be done with great success. Perhaps Hnath is aware of the Wilbur take and reasoned he’d go another route. If so, he shouldn’t have. Did he consider that spectators constantly bombarded by dozens of off-rhymes could receive their accumulating number as relentless distractions.
Want examples? Here are only a very few of the myriad ear-benders heard during the intermissionless presentation of the five-act original: convenient/disagreement; ridicule/fool (close, but no cigar); risks/trysts (no cigar here, either); whim/discipline; harass/outlast; nothing/bluffing; chummy/money; inside it/hiding; disclose/supposed.
For Hnath, careless rhyming is the order of the day when a little more thought might have corrected the misfires. Take the disclose/supposed almost rhyme . The line is: “Aren’t you worried I might disclose everything you just proposed?” Wouldn’t it make the same statement were it something like, “Aren’t you worried I might disclose what I heard you just propose”?
Oh, well, the audience is left with what Hnath proposes. Curiously, there might be another and broader explanation for why he’s wrought what he’s wrought, and it concerns a current attitude toward craft. Increasingly for Broadway musicals, lyricists are writing as if perfect rhymes are old-hat, a holdover from a prissier era of craft sticklers.
Is the nose-thumbing attitude towards attention to craft spreading? Let’s hope not and that Hnath-like Tartuffe lapses will cease sooner rather than later.
Tartuffe opened December 16, 2025, at New York Theatre Workshop and runs through January 24, 2026. Tickets and information: nytw.org
