Le Tartuffe ou l'hypocrite ・ Comédie-Française

“Molière’s plays are family and marital dramas, reflecting a changing society, torn between resolutely conservative tendencies – based on an idea of total, hierarchical and collective cohesion – and more individual desires for emancipation and freedom.”

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Molière’s birth on January 15, 2022, Ivo van Hove reunited with the Troupe for their third collaboration, a production of Le Tartuffe ou l’Hypocrite, the original version in three acts, banned at its premiere in 1664 and reconstructed thanks to the work of ‘theatrical genetics’ overseen by Georges Forestier and Isabelle Grellet.
This energetic, if not to say frenzied version of the play, focuses on the crisis Tartuffe triggers when he enters the life of a rich family that is falling apart. It emphasises 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 sets the play in a non-realistic space, an installation intended to serve as a framework for what he views as a social experiment, reminding us 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. That’s when the bomb explodes.”

Banned version in 3 acts and in verse restored by Georges Forestier, with the complicity of Isabelle Grellet

This show premiered on January 15, 2022 at the Salle Richelieu

A Comédie-Française / La Villette joint production

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Creative team

Direction: Ivo Van Hove
Dramaturgy: Koen Tachelet
Scenography and lights: Jan Versweyveld
Costumes: An D'Huys
Original music: Alexandre Desplat
Musical collaboration: Solrey
Sound: Pierre Routin
Video: Renaud Rubiano
Assistant direction: Laurent Delvert
Assistant scenography: Jordan Vincent
Assistant lighting: François Thouret