Tartuffe - Gloucs Echo

Tartuffe, Bacon Theatre Open Air Festival, Cheltenham Saturday 25th July 2009

Crackerjack rating: 9 / 10.

Miracle Theatre are a joy to watch – innovative and full of imagination, they turned Moliere’s Tartuffe into a riot. After two hours it finished all too soon and the audience at the Tuckwell Amphitheatre gave them a long, rousing round of applause.

The six actors from the Cornish-based company transformed this tale of a scoundrel on the make into a user-friendly and easy-to-understand farce.
Moliere wrote his play in rhyming couplets, which don’t translate well to the English stage. Miracle cleverly chose prose and gave their script a contemporary, conversational feel. Add to this their trademark talent for farce and physical theatre, a lively music score by Cornish band BragaTanga, and they’ve created a winner.

Moliere’s tale tells of the wealthy Orgon who takes in the homeless vagrant Tartuffe. He falls under the tramp’s spell, believing him to be a spiritual guru and soon signs over his house, savings and even his daughter in marriage to the holy man. But the family know Tartuffe is nothing but a conman and set out to save their inheritance and reveal Tartuffe for what he is.

The whole cast worked brilliantly together and comic timing was second to none. Each actor had some great moments. Ben Dyson was perfect as the hypocritical Tartuffe, dressing up his conniving, cunning ways as acts of kindness and sacrifice. In his thrall was the bumbling and naive Orgon, played by Jason Squibb. He and Kate Lamerton Wilde as his wife Elmire had a side-splitting scene where they tried to trick Tartuffe. Their son Damis was played by Dan Richards and daughter Mariane, was played brilliantly by Holly Kavanagh who made the role her own with a squeaky high-pitched voice and dramatic tears.
Other plaudits go to Lollie Brewer as the straight-talking maid Dorine and again to Kate Lamerton Wilde, who put on a gruff voice to take the role of Mariane’s fiancé Valere.

The set was fantastic, the weather kind and the humour non-stop. The company are regulars at the open-air festival, so make sure you don’t miss them next year. Joyce Matthews