Tartuffe: The Imposter
Wild Rice
Wild Rice @ Funan, April 23
It seems to be the season of the scam. Dodgy job offers and faux bank alerts besiege phones regularly. Television of late has been awash with shows about real-life hoaxes such as Inventing Anna, WeCrashed and The Dropout.
But there is nothing like a classic con, and home-grown theatre company Wild Rice goes back to the granddaddy of grift - Tartuffe, 17th-century French playwright Moliere's satire about a religious charlatan and the family he ensnares.
The play premiered in 1664, but from the moment the lights go up on the Wild Rice cast partying to 2001 hit song Lady Marmalade, it is clear there will be nothing old-fashioned about this adaptation, directed by Glen Goei.
Wealthy aristocrat Orgon (Ivan Heng) has fallen under the spell of the smarmily pious Tartuffe (Benjamin Chow), who has moved off the streets and into Orgon's house, to the dismay of the latter's family.
When Orgon announces he will wed his daughter Mariane (Oon Shu An) to Tartuffe, Orgon's much younger second wife, Elmire (Jo Tan) - whom Tartuffe secretly lusts after - decides to take matters into her own hands.
Tartuffe is Wild Rice firing on all cylinders. This scabrous satire manages to be simultaneously the most fun this reviewer has had in the theatre since the pandemic began - and also deeply unsettling.
The entire production is a treat to look at, from Wong Chee Wai's candy-pink set to Frederick Lee's jewel-toned baroque costumes, with crinolines and decolletages galore.
But this is a candy box with layers. Beneath the sugar-spun fun is a centre hard enough to crack a tooth on.
Playwright Joel Tan has commendably transformed a nearly 400-year-old script, eschewing Moliere's alexandrine rhyming couplets for deliciously profane modern dialogue packed with zingers.
He has also made shrewd changes such as adding a romance between Orgon's son Damis (Dennis Sofian) and Mariane's fiance Valere (Shane Mardjuki). The affiancement is in fact a ploy that will allow Damis and Valere to be together and spare Mariane the trap of arranged marriage.
This is played for laughs in the beginning - it gives rise to some raunchy sight gags - but later becomes vital to the plot in a way that ups the emotional stakes from the original.
Tan also rewrites the happy ending that Moliere left for posterity in 1669, after prolonged controversy and censorship from religious authorities scuppered previous iterations.
Without giving too much away, the new ending both lampshades and undermines the deus ex machina that resolves the 1669 version and feels closer in spirit to Moliere's original intentions.
The cast is superlative across the board. Jo Tan and Oon in particular bring fire and depth to Elmire and Mariane, who are all too aware of how society makes clever women collateral for a man's idiocy.
The evolution of their relationship, as Mariane goes from resentful stepdaughter to acknowledging the sacrifices Elmire has made to protect her, is one of the pleasant surprises of this adaptation.
Tartuffe deftly mixes slapstick comedy with chilling moments of sexism and homophobia.
It archly demonstrates how easily belief can be manipulated; how reason, authority and the law may afford no protection against a deft liar; and how those with the most power, who are used to always being right, might in fact be the most easily duped - endangering everyone else below them in the pecking order.
It does all this while being utterly hilarious. Moliere would probably have had a chuckle.
Book it/ Tartuffe: The Imposter
Where: Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre, Wild Rice @ Funan, Level 4, 107 North Bridge Road
When: Till May 1, Tuesdays to Fridays, 7.30pm; Saturdays, 2.30 and 7.30pm, Sundays, 2 and 7pm
Admission: $40 to $90 from Wild Rice's website
