TARTUFFE THE IMPOSTER

This play follows a present day affluent family living in Highgate London, as the father, Orgon gets enthralled by Tartuffe charismatic cult leader/spiritual guru. This play explores themes of loyalty, the weight of moral corruption and misplaced trust as his family surrounding him sees right through Tartuffe and his plan to take over the family and try and set up traps for Tartuffe to expose his true intentions to Orgon.

In my design I chose to lean into the hypocrisy of the family and their socio-economic status creating caricatures of their character stereotypes, leaning into this from the offset with the opening party scene creating costumes of how they are outwardly perceived or how they perceive themselves, for example Damis as Hercules as he thinks he can “save the day” at several points within the play. I drew inspiration from upper class pop culture such as Tatler and Made in Chelsea. For Tartuffe (and therefore the acolytes), i looked into cult leaders as well as spiritual gurus and experimented with different styles with the director, eventually landing on an orange inspired by father yod

‍ ‍Written by Moliere adapted by John Donnelly

Directed by Claire Brown

Photography by Simon Gough

Costume design - Katie Torbitt

Set design - Lo Money

Lighting designer - Danny Connaire

Sound designer - Nefeli Simpson