DIRECTOR’S NOTES

We live in a hypocritical society. We’re used to having hypocrites in the government, in our big companies, in our media, in our Instagram feeds and in all kinds of seats of power. We’re used to seeing unreal products promising unreal effects. Unreal backgrounds, unreal foods, unreal bodies, or faces, or happiness, or success. We’re used to hypocrisy. It’s everywhere. We are all hypocrites in a degree. We breathe hypocrisy. And we’re always in danger of being deceived by something or someone. Everybody hides something, has a hidden agenda, or has an endgame to their actions. We all want something, don’t we? And the bigger your dreams are, the bigger a hypocrite you have to become to reach them. That’s why honesty strikes us as an anomaly.

The characters in Tartuffe struggle at accepting that someone might be honest. They are intoxicated with excess, indulgence, and an absolute lack of consequence to their actions. They gossip, they drink, they eat, they distrust, and plot, and conspire to maintain their glowing palace. It’s funny how a whole world built up on lies and treason can be threatened by only just two words: truth, friend.

In the end, I think that what this version of Tartuffe (magnifically adapted to our times by John Donelly) is asking us is not so much who the imposter is, but rather who can afford to be an imposter in our society.

Namaste.           

Jordi Casado i Olivas