TARTUFFE March 9, 2009

Tartuffe is one of Moliere’s funniest and most controversial comedies. Although it was banned by the Church and led to the playwright’s imprisonment, Moliere, as he did in many of his comedies, wrote the play as an indictment of the bourgeoisie, not religion.
According to director and adapter Jeff Cohen, Tartuffe is a swindler who could have donned the mantle of any role to dupe his victims. That he picked religion in this instance is due to how easily his bourgeois victim – Orgon – is duped by his pious charade. It is Orgon who Moliere is bent on skewering, not the Church.

Jeff Cohen’s new American adaptation, written in verse and rhyming couplets, sets the play in New York City in an earlier depression-era - the 1930s. His adaptation seeks to employ a particularly American idiom - transposing Moliere's social satire to its American equivalent. In our own present time of outlandish wealth, dashed fortunes, and George Madoff-like swindlers, what better era to look back on than the Great Depression of the 1930s. Moliere spun his comedy from the stock characters of Commedia, and Mr. Cohen spins his from the golden era of American comedians and films.

DOG RUN REP is pleased to announce, as part of the South Street Seaport Winter Theatre Season, a new American adaption of Moliere’s classic comedy TARTUFFE, directed by Jeff Cohen. TARTUFFE will play a four-week limited engagement @Seaport (210 Front Street), presented, in part, through the generous support of General Growth Properties. Performances begin Friday, March 6 and continue Saturday, April 5. Opening Night is Monday, March 9 (7 p.m.).

Tickets for all performances are $18. There is also a “Seaport Season Pass” for $40, which is good for admission to every performance at the South Street Seaport Winter Theatre Season and can be purchased at www.dogrunrep.org.

For tickets, call Smarttix at 212-868-4444 or on the web at www.smarttix.com.

For information and a complete performance schedule, go to the Dog Run Rep website at www.dogrunrep.org.

Official Website: www.dogrunrep.org