Molière was appalled and distressed when he learned that although Louis XIV had enjoyed the court performance of Tartuffe on May 12, 1664 the "Sun King" had listened to pious advisers and had forbidden any further presentations of the play.
This great comic tale of religious hypocrisy was in trouble from the start. The dramatist had produced a farce in elegant verse featuring a "holy man" intent on seduction, theft and exploitation, an adroit manipulator of religious concepts and of religious language. The court advisers were probably scandalized at the playwright's witty undermining of religiosity and some of them may have felt directly targeted.
Molière's eloquent protests went unheeded and the revised version he presented publicly three years later was immediately shut down. Not until 1669, after a delay of five years, was Tartuffe performed, apparently with the King's permission. It became the most successful and most profitable of Molière's plays.
Charles P. Stites serves as something of a Molière for the City Theatre's production of Tartuffe. He drafted this text, directed it and stars as Tartuffe.
And what better setting for religious hypocrisy (via tele-evangelism) than modern Central Texas?
Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .
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