40 Fun Facts About Tartuffe

In Molière's Tartuffe, where does Orgon hide to overhear the title character trying to seduce his wife?

Under a table is where Orgon crouches at his wife's urging, and he crawls out only when Tartuffe's advances leave no room for doubt. It takes that much to shake a faith no argument had dented.

Thanks to Molière's play, calling someone a tartuffe in French or English brands them as what?

A hypocrite is the meaning, above all one who makes a show of religious virtue. The character was so vivid that his name became an everyday noun in two languages.

Which French king enjoyed Tartuffe at its 1664 court premiere yet banned Molière's comedy from public stages?

Louis XIV found the play highly diverting, but ruled that sham piety and true devotion looked too alike on stage for public showing. He went on shielding Molière from his clerical enemies all the same.

What penalty did the Archbishop of Paris threaten for anyone who watched, acted in or read Molière's Tartuffe?

Excommunication was the threat in Archbishop Péréfixe's edict, which covered readers as well as actors and audiences. Private showings for aristocrats carried on regardless.

Molière, the author of Tartuffe, collapsed on stage in 1673 while acting in which of his own comedies?

The Hypochondriac, also called The Imaginary Invalid, cast Molière as a healthy man convinced he is ill, while the actor himself had tuberculosis. He finished the show and died at home hours later.

Molière, author of Tartuffe, was the stage name of which Parisian who gave up law for the theatre?

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin adopted the name Molière in his early twenties, after quitting the family trade for the stage. He probably did it to spare his father the shame of an actor in the family.

Molière apparently took the name Tartuffe from an old French word for which food, hinting at concealment?

Truffle is the apparent root, from Old French tartuffe; a fungus that grows hidden underground suits a man who conceals his real nature. Italian tartufo, another proposed source, means the same thing.

The King's sudden rescue of Orgon in the final scene of Tartuffe is a famous example of which plot device?

Deus ex machina fits because a monarch who never appears on stage fixes everything. His officer arrives beside Tartuffe to arrest Orgon, then seizes the fraud instead.

In Tartuffe's first scene on stage, what does he hand the maid, telling her to cover her bosom?

A handkerchief comes out of his pocket before the maid can deliver her message, a show of modesty she mocks at once. The same man is propositioning his host's wife one scene later.

Where did Molière first stage Tartuffe in 1664, during a lavish festival laid on for the royal court?

Versailles hosted the first performance in May 1664, part of a festival called The Pleasures of the Enchanted Island. That three-act version was never printed, and its text is now lost.

Tartuffe is the single most performed play in the history of which Paris company, founded in 1680?

The Comédie-Française grew out of Molière's own troupe, merged with its rivals seven years after his death. It is still nicknamed the House of Molière.

Which character in Molière's Tartuffe is Orgon's second wife, the woman the title fraud tries to seduce?

Elmire is the one who finally opens her husband's eyes, by staging a second meeting with Tartuffe while Orgon listens in hiding. She is stepmother to his two grown children.

Which sharp-tongued maid in Molière's Tartuffe reconciles the young lovers and plots to unmask the title fraud?

Dorine mocks Orgon's marriage plan for his daughter so relentlessly that he swings a hand at her, and misses. No one else in the house dares speak to him so bluntly.

Which daughter of Orgon is told to break her engagement and marry Tartuffe in Molière's comedy?

Mariane is too dutiful to defy her father outright, so it falls to the maid to stiffen her resolve. She ends the play free to marry the man she chose.

Which hot-headed son of Orgon bursts from a closet to accuse Tartuffe, only to be banished himself?

Damis catches Tartuffe wooing his stepmother and runs to tell his father. The fraud then confesses to being a wretched sinner so humbly that Orgon takes his side and throws the boy out.

After banishing his own son in Molière's Tartuffe, what does Orgon sign over to the title character?

All his property goes to Tartuffe by deed of gift, which is why the fraud can later send a bailiff to evict the family. Only a royal order cancelling the deed saves the house.

In which act of Molière's five-act comedy does Tartuffe himself first walk on stage, after much talk about him?

The third act is the first to show him, so for two acts the audience knows Tartuffe only through a family quarrelling about him. He enters barking pious orders to his servant.

Which young suitor is engaged to Orgon's daughter before Orgon promises her to Tartuffe instead?

Valère quarrels with his fiancée over the news, each too proud to admit caring. He later hurries to warn Orgon that a warrant is out for his arrest, and wins his bride for it.

Which relative of Orgon opens Molière's Tartuffe by scolding the whole household and praising the title fraud?

Madame Pernelle, Orgon's mother, is the last to see through Tartuffe, still defending him after her son has seen the proof himself. In the first production the old lady was played by a man.

Which brother-in-law of Orgon serves as the calm voice of reason throughout Molière's Tartuffe?

Cléante argues for a middle way, urging Orgon not to scorn every devout person because one proved a fraud. Critics call this kind of level-headed adviser the raisonneur.

Which German silent-era director filmed Molière's Tartuffe in 1926 as a film within a film?

F. W. Murnau, four years after Nosferatu, framed the play as a film a young actor screens to warn his grandfather about a scheming housekeeper.

Which American poet made the rhymed English translation of Tartuffe used by Britain's National Theatre in 1967?

Richard Wilbur, a two-time Pulitzer winner, kept the play in rhymed verse rather than prose. He also wrote lyrics for Leonard Bernstein's musical Candide.

Kirke Mechem's Tartuffe, premiered in San Francisco in 1980, retells Molière's play in which form?

An opera in three acts, it sets Mechem's own English libretto in the comic opera buffa style while keeping the action in 17th-century Paris.

Which Russian director was rehearsing an unfinished production of Molière's Tartuffe when he died in 1938?

Konstantin Stanislavski, co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre, left the staging to his pupil Mikhail Kedrov, who finished it and opened it in December 1939.

With Tartuffe banned, Molière quickly wrote which play about an atheist nobleman to fill the gap in 1665?

Dom Juan shows an atheist who turns religious fraud and is punished by God, which only fed the row. It too was soon suspended, and Molière never staged it again.

In Molière's Tartuffe, how does Orgon's wife signal her hidden husband as the title fraud presses his advances?

She coughs loudly, again and again, yet Orgon stays hidden so long that Tartuffe kindly offers her a piece of liquorice for her cold.

According to Orgon in Molière's Tartuffe, where did he first come across the penniless title character each day?

In church, Tartuffe would kneel opposite Orgon, sigh and kiss the ground, then run ahead to offer him holy water at the door. Orgon took the show for saintliness and brought him home.

What evidence does Tartuffe hand the King to get Orgon arrested, having learned of it in confidence?

An exiled friend's papers, left with Orgon in a strongbox for safekeeping, were enough to brand him a traitor. He had told Tartuffe about them, and the fraud made off with the box.

Which colour do French actors shun, a superstition said to date from Molière's costume at his final performance?

Green is what he is said to have been wearing when he fell ill on stage in 1673, hours before he died. French theatre folk have treated the colour as unlucky ever since.

Which bailiff arrives in Molière's Tartuffe with a court order turning Orgon's family out of their own house?

Monsieur Loyal serves the eviction with oily politeness, claiming he once served Orgon's father. The maid is quick to mock how badly his name fits him.

Which French film star directed a 1984 screen version of Molière's Tartuffe and played the title role himself?

Gérard Depardieu had just played the part on stage in Strasbourg, and filming that production made him a director for the first time. He did not direct again for 15 years.

Which Molière comedy about the blunt-spoken Alceste premiered in 1666, while Tartuffe was still banned?

The Misanthrope cast Molière himself as Alceste, who rails at polite society's flattery yet cannot stop loving a flirt. Molière's own wife played her.

Molière wrote Tartuffe entirely in rhyming couplets of which twelve-syllable line, the classic French metre?

Alexandrine verse takes its name from a medieval romance about Alexander the Great. By Molière's day it was the prestige line of French tragedy, and he used it for all 1,962 lines of this comedy.

At which Paris theatre, home of Molière's troupe, did the final five-act Tartuffe open in triumph in 1669?

The Palais-Royal had also hosted the play's toned-down rewrite, which was banned after one night in 1667. When the full comedy finally opened there in 1669, it was a great success.

In Molière's toned-down 1667 rewrite of Tartuffe, staged just once, what new name did the title fraud carry?

Panulphe led a version retitled L'Imposteur, with the fraud dressed as a man of fashion in lace and sword rather than a near-cleric. It was banned the day after its single performance.

Which secret Catholic society, mocked as the cabal of the devout, was among the opponents of Tartuffe?

The Company of the Blessed Sacrament drew in nobles and clergy who backed hospitals and missions behind closed doors. Cardinal Mazarin had tried to suppress it, and it faded out soon after the Tartuffe affair.

Which actress, Molière's own wife, created the role of Orgon's wife in the first production of Tartuffe?

Armande Béjart played opposite her husband, who took the part of Orgon. After his death she kept his actors together, in the company that later became France's national theatre.

In Molière's Tartuffe, the maid recalls that Orgon once served his king bravely during which French civil wars?

The Fronde of 1648–53 was a string of revolts by law courts and great nobles against the crown. Orgon came out of it with a name for good sense, which makes his later folly all the stranger.

Which unseen servant does Tartuffe order to put away his hair shirt and scourge as he makes his first entrance?

Laurent never speaks, and is there only so the audience hears his master announce his own penances. Tartuffe adds, for the maid's benefit, that he is off to give alms to prisoners.

The RSC's 2018 Tartuffe moved Molière's story to a Pakistani-Muslim family in which English city?

Birmingham's Sparkhill district became the setting, and the show came home when Birmingham Repertory Theatre revived it in 2022. That revival was broadcast on BBC Four.