Walking into the Garvery Center Friday night 20 minutes before the play Tartuffe began in Judd Theater, no one knew what exactly to expect. One of the things that amazed many people was how many people would be there and the line people had to wait in before obtaining the tickets. As audience members made their way through the line and into the Judd Theater, the amount of seats that were already filled was somewhat surprising.
Within the first few moments of the play starting, freshman Tom Cotter, automatically identified a classmate of ours, Adam Everson, playing Damis, but that did not help the openin scene become more entertaining. About 20 minutes into it, people in the audience were so lost and were looking to other audience members for guidance.
"I was so lost for about the first hour of this play and definitely waiting for it to pick up," said Cotter. Within the first 40 minutes, the character Tartuffe had yet to appear so that suspense didn't sit well.
A form of conflict arises 20 minutes into this play with Orgon wanting to give his daughter Mariane to Tartuffe for marriage. Rachel Miller's character Dorine was a breath of fresh air within these confusing, dull characters.
"I found that there was ony one real funny scene throughout the whole play. During the whole play there was an usher who was cracking up the entire time, so I kind of felt out of the loop like I didn't get all the puns or tone of how words were delievered or anything," said freshman Kirby Killen.
Tartuffe tried to get Elmire to kiss him to show her love to him, but in reality she did not have any love for him. She just wanted to show Orgon that Tartuffe is a fraud because he was saying that he could do anything and that Orgon could lead Tartuffe by the nose. This point in the play shows that Orgon is an imposter.
Toward the end, Damis runs into the house saying that Tartuffe has gone to the judge and gave him convicting papers that Orgon was holding for a friend, and the judge ordered police to arrest him. The policeman makes it seem like he is coming for Orgon, but he is really there to arrest Tartuffe. This everlasting play ends with Orgon realizes that Mariane should be with Valere and gives her to Valere to be his wife.
Like everything entertainment related, this play had a slow start and better finish.
"I think they talked it up too much because it was supposed to be hilarious and that you should "bring a box of Kleenex," said Christal Talamantes.
Overall potentially it would be fine to go see this again if it were done by professionals because it felt like a lot of the speaking was either misunderstood or misheard because of the way it was set up and because of the lack of real accents and lack of experience in the actors.
