Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe
Clurman Theatre, New York

Tartuffe is the pre-eminent comic character in French dramatic literature, which makes him, like his counterpart in English letters, Falstaff, ripe for transformation into a musical. Molière’s charlatan displays lasciviousness, lust for power, and religious hypocrisy, but the greatest of these is the last. So it makes sense that his contemporary American guise would be someone like the title character in this new adaptation by Alfred Preisser and Randy Weiner for the Classical Theatre of Harlem.

His plotline may be Molière’s, but the contemporary Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe is fashioned after African-American preachers such as Reverend Ike. Flamboyant, velvet-voiced and egomaniacal, they nod to the next world but they worship this one.

“If you want your pie in the sky after you die, I am not your guy,” sings A.S. Tartuffe upon entering, his ring-encrusted fingers jabbing in rhythm to Kelvyn Bell’s up-tempo music. Preisser’s direction can be joyful; it can also be frenetic.

This 90-minute evening has the rollicking energy of a talent night at New York’s Apollo theatre. Its high spirits, however, can resemble the effects of a Red Bull downed at a disco: a jolt of energy followed by a slight crash. Unlike at a night club, here a lulled observer cannot slink into a dark corner and be assured of escape. Audiences are frequently drawn into the ersatz church service into which Molière’s setting has morphed.

If the indestructibility of Molière’s characters makes their musical facsimiles believable, few similarities in tone remain. Beneath Tartuffe’s unctuous display lies cutting, cunning seduction. A.S. Tartuffe’s come-on, by contrast, relies on a technique of “Come and get me, baby: how can you possibly resist?”

Among those susceptible to blandishment is Elmire, the juicy young wife of Orgon, the man Tartuffe hoodwinks into handing over a fortune. Embodied by the sensuous Kim Brockington, Elmire has little of the primness the character coaxes out of most actors.

Bathed in Aaron Black’s dizzyingly colourful lighting and outfitted in equally hue-laden outfits, André De Shields’ Tartuffe can barely stand still. In the recent, short-lived Broadway play Impressionism, De Shields strode on late and plucked the production away from Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen. In this new show, De Shields plays first fiddle. I prefer him in smaller doses. ★★★☆☆