Tartuffe (Hnath) Off-Broadway Reviews

A more traditional production might have switched the actors playing the two men, considering Broderick’s and Cross’s styles, but the counterintuitive casting keeps the show on its toes. In fact, casting in general is the ace in the director Sarah Benson’s sleeve as the company ably navigates Lucas Hnath’s fluid, if sometimes unnecessarily profane, verse adaptation of this classic 17th-century French comedy. (Admittedly, I did shudder hearing Hnath rhyme “Tartuffe” with words like “goof” since it should be pronounced with a hard “u” sound.)

But Hnath’s new Tartuffe is, to use an archaic term, a dud. “A razor-sharp reinvention of Molière’s iconoclastic comedy in a mad-dash production full of ferocious wit, outrageous design, and downright buffoonery” promises the promotional material. Not nearly. What we get, peppered by infrequent flashes of high humor, is sparkling wine sans sparkle.

In 2025, Lucas Hnath, one of our foremost contemporary playwrights who never misses, has contributed a Tartuffe revival that consists of so many off-rhymed couplets they may outnumber the couplets properly rhymed. So much so that this “new version” is instantly a disorienting miss. It’s why I cannot in good conscience recommend the production unreservedly.

The convention is a little too on the nose — we know no one in this family is the humble, selfless servant Tartuffe claimed to be, but we did just spend two hours invested in their stories and hoping for a happy ending. Hnath and Benson seem a tad too comfortable in their smug resignation; I half expected Trump to come out to pardon Orgon’s treason, not a messenger of Louis XIV. The scenic design by dots is clever, with the family’s home placed atop a clay tennis court, but it leaves little to look at. Once you get the conceit, it gets old fast. Perhaps the same could be said of the production.

This new take is a mixed bag, hilarious one moment and bafflingly uneven the next. As Madame Pernelle, Bianca Del Rio gets the ball rolling with a breathless and perfectly delivered extended monologue where she announces the numerous faults of everyone with whom she is sharing oxygen. Imperious and hilarious, Del Rio leaves all the other characters and the audience breathless in her wake. Then the grande Madame exits the stage, not to return until the last minutes of the play. She is missed, and make no mistake, she knows it, because her late return gets applause from the audience and gives the show a needed jolt of energy.

In the end, though, two hours of verse does begin to wear thin. Clever, yes, but a difficult flex to maintain for a long period of time. Two other elements that, frankly, annoyed me are the jarring, industrial honking sound that accompanied some of the scene changes, accomplishing God knows what, and the rather distaff closing musical number, which comes out of nowhere. It blunts the effect of the play’s conclusion. Nevertheless, Tartuffe is a clever show with an excellent cast and high production values, and some moments of true hilarity.

It’s the best stage performance I’ve seen Broderick give in many years. The production capitalizes on his off-kilter energy to upend our notions of who Tartuffe is and his soft-spoken tone is, in its own way, a heightened style of acting. This was the first time I’ve seen a Tartuffe that made me miss Tartuffe when he wasn’t onstage, a feat all of its own.

But instead of updating the material, or digging into the modern parallels in a story that’s all about religious hypocrisy and the gullibility of the masses, Hnath seems content to regurgitate the original beat for beat with only the most minor of adjustments. More disappointingly, Hnath is not a natural poet and his adaptation relies on a series of sing-song verses and half-rhymes (ages and changes, disciple and Bible) that tend to be more toward clunky than clever.

The online blurb for New York Theatre Workshop’s new production of Moliere’s 1664 comedy “Tartuffe” promises “a mad-dash production full of ferocious wit, outrageous design, and downright buffoonery.” I beg to differ. While it’s possible you may have a reasonably pleasant time, especially if you’ve never seen this classic comedy before, that description is not exactly truth in advertising.

Broderick, last seen on Broadway opposite his wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, in Plaza Suite, allows the madness to unfold around him gently. It’s a generous performance that speaks to Hnath’s take. “Cheaters are also easily cheated,” Elmire says as she prepares to trap the imposter, “because they assume they’re the only ones cheating.” We can only hope.