By ALAN SCHERSTUHL
These days, there's no actor in town I look forward to seeing more than Patrick Du Laney.
The odd thing? You'll mostly see him in academic productions. His current success, one that deserves to fuel months of shows, runs just this weekend.
We'll get to Du Laney as Tartuffe. First, though, some critical housekeeping. A couple of years ago, when this play-reviewing gig first swallowed my life, it seemed a tricky thing to critique the shows at UMKC's graduate theater department. I enjoyed most of them, and I admired how these high-end student productions were often more daring than professional ones, but mouthing off in print about young people's schoolwork always struck me as a little cheap. The bind: I wanted to let readers know about the extraordinary shows mounted at UMKC, but I also fretted, at times, that I should ignore the lousy ones, that the academic nature of the productions meant they weren't fair game for the kind of bitch-slap I might offer the Rep.
I no longer think that. So, before I carry on about how much I enjoyed UMKC's Tartuffe, let me just get this into the Googleable public record: I don't care if your play stars students, amateurs or autistic third graders dressed as Thanksgiving turkeys. If you invite me, I feel free to lay it down and make sweet hate to it.
Other than some stiffness among the ensemble's backbench performers, there's not much to hate in Tartfuffe, the story of a conman priest who takes an aristocratic family for everything he can -- including its women. For anyone inclined toward rhyming, centuries-old French farce, it’s a must-see. I laughed long and hard: at costume designer Nadine Grant's gorgeous and goofy corsets, bustles and Purple Rain waistcoats. At the chilly, solemn music that underscored each false religious epiphany. At Ranjit Bolt's randy translation, where a spade is a spade and a fuck is a fuck. And especially at two stand-out performances that start at over-the-top and quickly vault higher, into some upper strata of divine ridiculousness.
Teensy Anna Safar, as the meddling maid Dorine, romps through the first act, engaged in wicked play. Beaming a surly smile, she scoots about the stage like a mechanical figure in a glockenspiel. Sometimes she'll strike a ballet position while dishing out insults and advice in an earthy, Jersey-girl snarl. Director Theodore Swetz sets many scenes to the pace of a metronome, and Safar keeps a constant, fidgety time, sometimes bouncing to the beat of Moliere's couplets, often stamping her foot to punctuate her lines. Her Dorine is a rare creation: The accent, the faces, the lines, the movements, the voice – they’re all funny. Part ballerina and part R2D2, this Safar is funny every moment she's onstage.
I can’t remember the last time that happened in the theater. Remarkably, in Tartuffe, it happens twice.
Du Laney doesn't show up until over an hour in, but when his false-priest Tartuffe oozes onstage in his vestments and stringy Weird Al wig, it elevates the entire production. Du Laney plays Tartuffe as a wheedling actor, toying with his various guises, making clear just how much this pious fraud enjoys running his con. Two lengthy seduction scenes with Helen Gonzalez (as Elmire) offer wild, memorable comedy, with Du Laney putting equal icky energy into pray and prey alike and Gonzalez (also funny) gamely fighting him off. When Orgon, the master of the house (Jason Reynolds), catches Tartuffe pawing at the bodice of Elmire, Orgon's wife, Du Laney marshals the skills that have served him so well playing tortured misfits in Oklahoma! and other shows. He collapses to the floor and abases himself, begging God and Orgon's forgiveness with such power that we almost believe him. This Tartuffe even seems to believe it himself.
Director Swetz and the excellent Du Laney mine fresh insight from an old farce -- to lie convincingly, this Tartuffe has to wring himself until the lie feels true. That must be why Du Laney's one of our most compelling actors: He lies, marvelously.
Tatruffe runs through Sunday, October 5 at the Spencer Theatre in UMKC's Performing Arts Center, 4949 Cherry. Call 816-235-6222 for tickets.
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