Ashland Theatre Note: Tartuffe

In Tartuffe, the folks at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival do what I always complain that they don’t do: they trust the text. And what a text it is: Molière’s original as translated by Ranjit Bolt is in iambic quatrameter—sic, four beats—and rhyming couplets. You’d think it would be impossible to sustain, but with pell-mell enjambment and ping-pong versification—ending each other’s rhymes—it is so smooth as to be almost conversational It’s the smoothest bit of versification I’ve heard since Vikram Seth’s Golden Gate—another parlor trick that shouldn’t ought to work, but does. With a capable cast and a minimum of distraction, it’s an all-round success. Heck, he even colored the faux 17^th Century stage in muted pastels, so as almost to call attention to the fact that he wasn’t calling attention to anything but the verse.

Update: For an extension of remarks, go here (link).