Baumgartner Has Done It Again, Along With A Brilliant Cast & Crew, At The Little Theatre

By Julie Stern

Town Players chairman Ruth Anne Baumgartner sets new standards each summer with her plan to elevate and broaden the minds of Newtown audiences. Having tackled various works by Shakespeare and other Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists in past years, Ms Baumgartner now brings to the stage of The Little Theater in Newtown the master of the Comedie Francaise, Moliere, with a production of his savagely satirical Tartuffe, done in a classical verse translation by Richard Wilbur.

In daily life Ms Baumgartner is a professor of literature, and as usual, her lucid program notes help to put the play in a context that is accessible to folks not readily familiar with 17th century French comedy.

Moliere, who had to change his name when he became an actor so as not to humiliate his well-to-do family, gained the love of the common people for his ridicule of the rich and pretentious. He also gained the enmity of a powerful segment of the Church for the way he attacked sanctimonious and hypocritical piety.

Tartuffe is a portrait of a scheming conman who poses as an ultra-religious practitioner. In this guise he wins the friendship of, and exerts a growing influence over, a well-to-do gentleman, Orgon. Pretending to be indifferent to possessions and issues, Tartuffe induces Orgon to sign over his estates to him, in a gesture of brotherly piety, and even to promise him his daughter in marriage.

While his wife, children, brother-in-law and servant all see through Tartuffe’s connivances, Orgon is so stubborn in his new enthusiasm that they are powerless to convince him of the truth, until… but by then it may be too late…

When it was written in 1664, this play got Moliere in so much trouble that he had to rewrite it three times in order to come up with a version that made it clear that he was attacking hypocrisy, not the established order, and it is only this particular variation –  in which the wise, good and sensible king rectifies things at the last possible moment, finished nearly five years later – that was finally deemed  acceptable.

The costumes and wigs are fun for the actors as well as the audience, and there are several fine performances, especially that of Rob Pawlikowski in the title role. In previous productions Mr Pawlikowski has been a bit over the top, but this time, and with Ms Baumgartner’s judicious direction, he allows the character to be himself, deliciously.

Keegan Finlayson also does a beautiful job with the role of Orgon, Pamela Meister is a saucy maid who speaks her mind, Elise Bochinski, Ashley Nichols, Simon Cole and George Lang play the family members trying to get through to their rock-headed paterfamilias, and Judy Raines is a swishily sinister bailiff.

(Performances will continue on weekends through July 24. Call 270-9144 for ticket and curtain details, directions, or to make reservations.)