‘Tartuffe’ Arrives in Style, but It’s a Facade

Waiting for the lights to dim before the performance of “Tartuffe” at the Alternative Repertory Theatre, there was a sense of elated expectation. The brightly painted floor cast a rosy hue on the faces of the patrons. The lady across the way was looking around with a secret smile, her demurely crossed leg dancing rebelliously to the Mozartean strains of the pre-show music.

And then the performance began.

Oh, the costumes were glorious: whimsical concoctions in drifts of white fabric and yards of trim by gifted designer Abel Zeballos, topped off with extravagant wigs and Gary Christensen’s fanciful makeup designs. S. Silvio Volonte’s elegant set, lit with inventive craft by David C. Palmer, took us very effectively into the house of a wealthy 17th-Century family with good taste and lots of style.

Too much style, in fact. Director Patricia L. Terry’s production is like an ornate box with nothing inside. Instead of people, there are poses.

A production like this would never have sparked the uproar that greeted “Tartuffe” when it premiered at the court of Louis XIV. Moliere, that great social critic disguised as a jester, skewered the icons of the day with his irreverent comedies.

How ironic that ART’s “Tartuffe” seems to have derailed out of a reverence for Moliere.

“Style,” that mysterious bugaboo of classical acting, might be defined as the behavior that springs naturally from the fashions and customs of a particular time.

The style of ART’s “Tartuffe,” epitomized by the unnatural toe-first walk of a ballet dancer, may have been inspired by a desire for period authenticity. It may have been undertaken as a liberating investigation into the ways and whys of Moliere’s aristocratic characters, whose outer lives were, arguably, very different from our modern ones.

However it may have arrived, it has taken a stranglehold on the production, choking out the humor like an overgrown vine cuts out the sunlight.

In any age, people are people, but there’s precious little humanity behind the facade of Terry’s production.

Even the language is hobbled by an overemphasis on too many words per sentence, as if the actors were determined to wring every conceivable meaning from a single reading. The result, staccato and dismembered, sounds about as human as walking toe-first looks.

Jonathan Motil, as the bamboozled head-of-the-household, Orgon, manages to invest his characterization with a ripe earnestness, his face expanding and contracting between extreme expressions of delight and distress.

As his daughter, Mariane, Lori Stamper has a poignant moment of pleading in the second act. And William Peters, as the hypocritical Tartuffe, grimaces amusingly with a face as broad-featured as the entrance to a carnival fun house.

There is one outrageously funny scene in which Tartuffe reveals himself, literally, as the seducer he really is. The way this moment is staged has nothing at all to do with pointed toes, or anything else in the production, for that matter. But it is definitely irreverent, and it is shockingly funny.

Had the rest of the production taken this scene as a touchstone, then we might have seen the lecherous and hilarious “Tartuffe” we so eagerly anticipated.

“Tartuffe,” Alternative Repertory Theatre, 1636 S. Grand Ave., Santa Ana. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends June 12. $13.50-$16. (714) 836-7929. Running time: 2 hours. Pattric Walker: Madame Pernelle Jacqueline Fisher: Dorine Edward Rowan: Damis Lori Stamper: Mariane Sally Leonard: Elmire Patrick Munoz: Cleante Jonathan Motil: Orgon William Peters: Tartuffe Monsieur Loyal: Woody Bixby

An Alternative Repertory Theatre production. Written by Jean Baptiste Moliere. Translated by Christopher Hampton. Directed by Patricia L. Terry. Set: D. Silvio Volonte. Lights: David C. Palmer. Costumes: Abel Zeballos. Sound and Makeup: Gary Christensen.