Le Tartuffe ou l'Hypocrite ・ Comédie-Française

Celebrating Molière in his house with a work that has never performed by the Troupe seems unimaginable, yet with Le Tartuffe ou l’Hypocrite Ivo van Hove has us discover the original version, which was banned after the first performance in 1664.

It has been reconstructed thanks to the work of ‘theatrical genetics’ carried out by the historian Georges Forestier, who explains that this Tartuffe was censored by Louis XIV as the latter could not, on the one hand, be the champion of Catholic orthodoxy and, on the other, allow his favourite actor-author to perform this satire of false piety in his Parisian theatre. The play we have known ever since, Le Tartuffe ou l’Imposteur, is a modified version dating from 1669, with a gentler pace and extended to five acts, whereas the first one comprised only three acts. This production marks Ivo van Hove’s reunion with the Troupe, which he worked with for his stagings of Les Damnés and Électre/Oreste, but it is also a reunion with Molière, whose Le Misanthrope and L’Avare he has already staged, but whom he is directing for the first time in France. He has chosen this energetic, if not to say frenzied version of the play, which focuses on the crisis Tartuffe sets off when he enters the life of a rich family that is falling apart. It focuses on Tartuffe’s passionate relationship with the rich Orgon’s young second wife, the conflict between father and son and the opposition between Cléante’s progressive and libertine vision of the world and the conservative one espoused by Orgon and his mother. Ivo van Hove does not forget that Tartuffe is a beggar who “is attributed the role of saviour and man of piety by Orgon, who finds in him a confidant and a spiritual master” so much so that, in order to “seal this unique bond, he decides to make Tartuffe his sole heir. The bomb explodes. Like many of Molière’s comedies, Tartuffe is a social drama.”
Ivo van Hove

New production
Comedy in three acts and in verse
Censored version of 1664 reconstructed by Georges Forestier, with the complicity of Isabelle Grellet
Creation date: 12 May 1664 at the Château de Versailles
1st time at the Comédie-Française

Tartuffe ou l’Imposteur, in 5 acts, the usually performed version, was premiered on 5 February 1669 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal and has been performed 3,193 times by the Comédie-Française since 1680.

On Tour
Hambourg, Thalia Theater – 7 and 8 MAY 2022 at 8 pm
Montpellier, Printemps des Comédiens – 26, 27 and 28 MAY 2022 at 10 pm
Lyon, Les Nuits de Fourvière – 2, 3 and 4 JUNE 2022 at 10 pm
Athènes, Athens Epidaurus Festival – 16, 17 and 18 JUNE 2022 at 9 pm

In cinemas live on January 15th followed by the tribute to Molière by the Troupe

With the support of la Fondation pour la Comédie-Française

Recommended for children above 14 years old.

Creative team

Directed by: Ivo van Hove
Dramaturgy: Koen Tachelet
Scenography and light: Jan Versweyveld
Costumes: An D'Huys
Original music: Alexandre Desplat
Musical collaboration: Solrey
Sound: Pierre Routin
Video: Renaud Rubiano
Make-up: Claire Cohen
Assistant direction: Laurent Delvert
Assistant scenography: Jordan Vincent
Assistant light: François Thouret

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