Molière is sometimes referred to as the Shakespeare of France, but the 17th-century playwright has enough of an English-language following to inspire Molière in the Park, an outdoor theater event in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. And its latest production, Tartuffe, or The Hypocrite, about a grifter posing as a spiritual adviser, is as wickedly relevant now as it was in the days of Louis XIV.
Like Shakespeare in the Park, the Brooklyn Tartuffe is free, but it’s staged more humbly, on a square platform with two or three wooden-bench rows on each side. It is a bootstrap Tartuffe, with lively, deft actors, but no sets or props or elaborate costumes, and it is utterly charming.
This isn’t your mother’s Tartuffe. Maya Slater’s translation is based on the original, three-act 1664 version of the play (the official 1669 version has five acts) that was reconstituted by a French historian and debuted in Paris in 2022. Slater’s translation rhymes but with dashes of modern colloquialisms.
Little known, and set in a humble corner of Brooklyn, Molière in the Park is easy to miss. But don’t. (moliereinthepark.org) —Alessandra Stanley