How do you take a play written more than 350 years ago and make it feel fresh, relevant and genuinely entertaining to a modern audience? Writer and director Darren Raymond meets that challenge with his clever adaptation, Tartuffe (Remixed), at the Marylebone Theatre.
He has taken Molière’s celebrated play out of its 1660s Parisian setting and dropped it into a present-day Nigerian-Jamaican family in England. The production combines the classical satire of the original with sharp observations on family life and present-day Black British identity, delivering it all through energetic rhyming couplets.
The story centres on two multigenerational families of Nigerian and Jamaican origin who have gathered at the home of patriarch Oga Afolabi (Usifu Jalloh) as preparations are made for his daughter Adanna’s (Sara Mokonen) marriage to Sinclair (Ivandro Da Cruz Leite). What should be a joyous family celebration is soon disrupted when Pastor Blake (Mark Rylance), a charismatic preacher, arrives and sets about disrupting the wedding as part of a plan to gain control of the family’s wealth.
Oga is completely taken in by the pastor and is blind to the holy man’s scheming. Other members of the family, particularly Adanna’s best friend Kemi (Morenike Onajobi) and Oga’s wife, Elmire (Nakeba Buchanan) are far less easily fooled and quickly begin to see Blake for the fraud he really is.
Darren Raymond’s script comes alive through its masterful use of verse. Molière’s original poetry is transformed into rhyming couplets that blend contemporary spoken word, London slang and African and Caribbean dialects and rhythms. The dialogue bounces effortlessly around the stage, giving the production a wonderfully musical quality while making its themes of faith, morality and blind devotion feel as fresh and relevant today as they did when Molière wrote the play in the 17th century.
Raymond’s direction keeps the pace slick and energetic, with the comedy played big and bold, mixing slapstick, wordplay and moments of high farce. Thankfully, it never feels forced and there are plenty of moments that had me laughing out loud. At times the sheer energy and volume of the production can feel a little overwhelming, but it is difficult to resist its infectious enthusiasm. What works particularly well is Raymond’s ability to balance all this exuberance with the play’s more serious emotional stakes. Beneath the laughs, there is a story about manipulation, faith and the vulnerability of those who are looking for something to believe in and the production never loses sight of that.
The cast delivers a uniformly energetic set of performances, with Ivandro Da Cruz Leite, Christopher Mbaki, Sara Mokonen and Morenike Onajobi all making strong contributions in their supporting roles. All four are products of Darren Raymond’s Intermission Youth, a London-based theatre company that works to transform the lives of disadvantaged young people. I particularly enjoyed Morenike Onajobi, who gives Kemi a sharp wit and a commanding stage presence, making her a particularly engaging character whenever she is on stage.
Usifu Jalloh is excellent as Oga, combining great comic timing with a real sense of pathos as a man whose unquestioning faith leaves him blind to Pastor Blake’s conniving. Suzette Llewelyn is equally effective as the Jamaican Grandma, capturing the character’s wit and vulnerability as she falls under the pastor’s influence. At the centre of the production is Mark Rylance as Pastor Blake and he is clearly having a lot of fun with the role. He manages to make Blake appear harmless, charming and virtuous while gradually revealing his calculating nature beneath the surface.
What makes Tartuffe (Remixed) work so well is that it feels like much more than a modernised version of Molière. Darren Raymond takes the original story and makes it belong to a different family, a different culture and a different time, while retaining the sharp satire and infectious comedy at its heart. The result is a production that feels both rooted in Molière and distinctly its own, combining his enduring themes with Raymond’s distinctive approach to classical theatre, an accomplished cast and the considerable stage presence of Mark Rylance. It’s an energetic, inventive and thoroughly entertaining night at the theatre.
