After the huge success of Tartuffe in 1987, director K Madavane didn’t repeat the performance. Years later, he is bringing back the production that changed the style of Indian theatre by introducing props as a symbol of the story’s characters.
When K Madavane produced Moliere’s Tartuffe for the first time in 1987, it created ripples in the Indian theatre and was a runaway success. Not only did it receive a lot of critical appreciation but also gave birth to Rajat Kapoor, who played the title role and was a part of Madavane’s theatre group Chingari.
Since then, the play has never been performed and now, 28 years later, Madavane is coming up with it again on “popular demand.” The director shares, “When it was performed for the first time, it changed the landscape of theatre. I introduced wheels on stage props — a high-backed chair, a long table and two small stools. It was nothing like what Indian theatre had seen.”
The play, written by French playwright Moliere, is considered one of the finest pieces of comedy written in French. Tartuffe in French means an imposter and the story revolves around the sinister character of Tartuffe who comes into a family as a pious and religious man and tries to command the household.
What aids his devious plans is the fact that the head of the household, Orgon, is completely smitten by him. Such is Tartuffe’s influence on Orgon, that he even plans to marry his daughter Mariane, who is already engaged to a boy named Valere, to Tartuffe.
The rest of the family — Orgon’s wife Elmire, housemaid Dorine and Cleante, Elmire’s brother — come up with a clever plan to expose the true character of Tartuffe to Orgon and his mother Madame Pernelle.
The star attraction of the play, even today, are the four pieces of furniture. “The play is fast and the furniture is constantly moved around by the characters,” Madavane explains. The characters use the furniture as props but according to the director, it has a very deep symbolic reference. “The set is also an actor,” he adds. The big high-back chair is symbolic of the head of the family while the others collectively represent other members.
The constant movement symbolises the constant state of chaos that the characters live in because of Tartuffe. The open two-decked table is another striking feature of the play. In most plays a table is covered with a cloth but Madavane has chosen to leave it open because “it has a lot of comic potential.”
These kind of props were prevalent in Moliere’s time and was called a ‘comic space’. When Elmire tries to seduce Tartuffe, in order to reveal his real character, Orgon hides himself in the lower deck of the table and his antiques are humorous.
Through the play the director also sends out a message on the misuse of power. When Orgon starts handing over the charge of the house to Tartuffe, he is misusing his powers. “It is applicable to the head of anything — institution, company or even a country,” Madavane says. There is also an underlying message about the influence of Godmen on people and how they use religion for their own selfish motives. “Godmen should not be the only ones to be blamed. People like us, who believe in them and follow them, are equally at fault. We should also realise this,” says the director.
According to Madavane, theatre can never be realistic because all expressions are rehearsed. Nothing is spontaneous. “Even when a character is hiding from another character on the stage, everyone knows about it,” says Madavane. His forte lies in combining the body with the voice (which was more important in the 90s). “I developed this style with the actor of my group Chingari between 1983 and 1987,” he adds. Madavane hopes that the new production, which he has directed with fresh actors from Shri Ram Centre, will be accepted the same way it did years ago.