That fine American playwright Lucas Hnath has made his mark with a series of intriguing and altogether different plays, including The Christians, Red Speedo, Dana H., and A Doll’s House, Part 2. He is to be saluted for once again bravely forging into an altogether different genre with a modernized-yet-period adaptation of Molière’s Tartuffe. New York Theatre Workshop deserves gratitude for, presumably, guaranteeing Hnath a production script unseen. The acting company assembled, by and large, gives their collective all to the proceedings.
But Hnath’s new Tartuffe is, to use an archaic term, a dud. “A razor-sharp reinvention of Molière’s iconoclastic comedy in a mad-dash production full of ferocious wit, outrageous design, and downright buffoonery” promises the promotional material. Not nearly. What we get, peppered by infrequent flashes of high humor, is sparkling wine sans sparkle.
Ferociously witty verse, we quickly fathom, is not Hnath’s chosen métier. Take this passage:
I remember when you were young and pretty
you were the biggest slut in the whole entire city.
But now you’ve turned into an ugly old bitty,
so jealous of others who get to have lovers
you’ll go out of your way to make them all suffer.
She just misses what she wishes she still had
and seeing our dear Mrs. with it only makes her mad.
If it’s high style versifying the playwright wants, this might serve as a first draft. His attempts at rhyme are mostly in the close-but-not-quite category, and the results are damaging. The late Richard Wilbur’s translations of Molière, including an especially sterling 1963 Tartuffe, are still capable of generating cascades of continuous laughter. At NYTW, we get intermittent drips.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★☆☆☆ review here.]
Even so, the players do their utmost to make the best of it. Amber Gray as Elmire, wife of man-of-the-house Orgon; Emily Davis (memorable as Reality Winner in Is This a Room) as daughter Mariane; Ryan J. Haddad as disowned son Damis; and Francis Jue as brother-in-law Cleante all contribute to the merriment. So, too, do Bianca Del Rio, as mother-in-law Mme Pernelle; Ikechukwu Ufomadu as Valère, the suitor; and especially Lisa Kron as the servant Dorine, who runs and rules the house.
Who are we leaving out? David Cross, of Arrested Development and other comedy ventures. He has a lot to do as Orgon, rather more than any of the others. While an accomplished stand-up comedian, Cross seems tentative; all too frequently he pauses, looking front for a reaction before continuing. And then there’s Matthew Broderick in the title role. Yes, the performance he gives is—shall we say—not dissimilar to Broderick performances past. But Hnath seems to have lavished his creative attention on the supporting characters, leaving the leading men to fend for themselves.
Director Sarah Benson keeps everyone on their toes, alright, but appears to have done little to help Hnath achieve his aims and nothing to prod him into glaringly necessary revisions. One suspects, too, that Benson approved the baffling choreographed scene changes, composed of various cast members spinning like toy ballerinas holding tennis rackets. (Yes, I know that le tennis was the Parisien sport à la mode when Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664. But still.) Raja Feather Kelly choreographed.
The design team, at least, seems to have discerned the professed intentions and followed through with élan. The scenic collective that calls itself dots has pared the script to its essence and given us the barest essentials in heightened mode. Here we have a wide, classy, classic petit salon, with two doors for farcical sorties; a large wardrobe against the wall, for hiding and eavesdropping; and little more other than a wide but functional purplish table, suitable for seduction. The set serves in identical manner to the dots design for Oh, Mary!, although similarities between the plays—and the effect on playgoers—end there.
Enver Charkatash provides costumes with period flair enhanced by outré touches: Mariane wears a dress that looks like a pink flower in unruly blossom, Damis is garbed in violet with what look like feathery fluffs atop his boots, Elmire is gowned in what looks like last year’s lace tablecloth. (Broderick, as the hypocritically devout Tartuffe, is garbed in puritan black, looking like he raided the wardrobe of the Quaker Oats man.) Wig and hair designer Robert Pickens follows Charkatash’s lead: Mariane’s wig looks like there are birds hidden in there, about to fly south. There is also an original song heard at the close, written by Heather Christian (Oratorio for Living Things).
But the daffily outrageous design only goes so far. Hnath’s Tartuffe is the sort of play in which one of characters says, after a hundred or so minutes, “Oh my god, this is sooo boring.” He said it.
Tartuffe opened Dec. 16, 2025, at New York Theatre Workshop and runs through Jan. 24, 2026. Tickets and information: nytw.org
