Molière’s Controversial ‘Tartuffe’
One of our most enduring comedies was almost never seen
Onstage at Lantern Theater Company September 7 through October 8, 2023, Molière’s Tartuffe is one of theater’s most enduring comedies. Its sharp satire of religious hypocrisy and willful blindness feels relevant in any age. But in Molière’s time, it hit too close to home in a country with a history of religious unrest and a looming future of religious control.
Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664, early in the reign of King Louis XIV, and the end of the play celebrates Louis’ perfect judgment and unimpeachable justice. In a theatrical convention called a deus ex machina — literally, “god from the machine” — Louis’ agent swoops in from outside the plot with power only the King can provide. In this case, God really was in the machine: Louis asserted that he was chosen by God to rule directly, given power by him, and that he was answerable to God alone. But despite an ending that rests entirely on the mighty shoulders of a divinely chosen king, Tartuffe was subject to intense controversy in its time for its less flattering portrayal of religious figures.
As a boy, Louis was humiliated and frightened by the Fronde; in Tartuffe, this is the conflict in which Orgon fought on the side of the king, another of Molière’s nods to Louis’ authority and righteousness. As a result, when he took direct control of his government in 1661, he quickly set to work consolidating his power and enforcing his absolute monarchy. One major area that he asserted his divine influence was religion: Louis was a devout Catholic, and he insisted that France as a whole needed to be a Catholic country.
Despite his devotion to the religion, though, Louis did not like how much authority the Pope had, as it threatened his assertion that he was divinely anointed. In the years following Tartuffe, Louis supported the Gallican Articles, which rejected the authority of the Pope, reaffirmed France’s independence from Rome, and made it so the King could never be excommunicated and could choose all his own bishops. His resolve to make France a solely Catholic nation was such that in 1685, he effectively made Protestantism illegal in the country, even quartering soldiers in Protestant homes to convince them to convert or flee.
It was in the early days of this push toward a nationwide Catholicism that Molière wrote Tartuffe, in which a greedy and lecherous con man fakes Catholic piety. Molière was already a controversial figure before Tartuffe — his earlier comedy, The School for Wives, drew accusations of immorality. When Tartuffe was first performed for the King, the Church pounced, emboldened by the new King’s devotion and wary of protecting their reenergized hold on power. Piety should only be portrayed as a force for good, they argued; in fact, it was common practice for religious figures to live with families in order to monitor and encourage devoutness. Molière’s jabs at the hypocrisy of such a figure — one who uses religion for personal enrichment and to fulfill his lust — threatened the authority of the church.
Leaders of the French Roman Catholic Church, adherents to the secret Catholic society The Company of the Blessed Sacrament, and members of upper-class French society all opposed the play. Though the King enjoyed Tartuffe and maintained Molière’s protection throughout the ordeal, he allowed the archbishop of Paris to ban the play after its first performance and to threaten excommunication to anyone caught performing, watching, or even reading it.
Over the course of five years, Molière appealed to the King several times. The original version has not survived; neither has a heavily rewritten version that got a single performance in 1667 before the Parlement of Paris again banned the play. The ongoing controversy, though, made Tartuffe an exciting taboo for upper-class Parisians; despite the threat of excommunication, readings in private homes were a popular pastime.
It would not be Molière’s last brush with controversy. Shortly after writing Tartuffe, he wrote Dom Juan, a comedy skewering the licentiousness of the wealthy with religious undertones. This play also caused outrage; it had a few public performances and then was banned, and it never reappeared onstage during Molière’s lifetime. Tartuffe avoided that fate. When the play was finally permitted public performances in 1669, in the form that has survived to today, it was an immediate hit and remained popular for centuries to come. The French religious establishment could argue with the content, but the theater could not argue with the results.
More great reading: See other recent articles and interviews on the Lantern Searchlight blog
Lantern Theater Company’s production of Molière’s Tartuffe, translated into English verse by Richard Wilbur, is onstage September 7 through October 8, 2023, at St. Stephen’s Theater. Visit our website for tickets and information.
