TARTUFFE is back - Philip Sherlock Centre hosts remount of comedy for five days

The University Players has announced the return of Molière's hilarious comedy Tartuffe, for five performances only at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, University of the West Indies, Mona.

Universally regarded as the greatest French writer of comedy, Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664 but the play created such a scandal, it was banned following its first performance. It wasn't until 1669 that it was revived and became one of his greatest successes. Tartuffe is now considered one of the greatest - and funniest - plays ever written.

After running to sold-out houses during its October run, this sparkling new translation directed by Paul Issa, and boasting a strong cast of talented and well-known Jamaican actors such as Alwyn Scott, Munair Zacca and Teisha Duncan, Tartuffe will return for a limited engagement of five performances, running November 17-20 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, November 21 at 6 p.m.

Tartuffe is a beacon of piety who has become the permanent houseguest and spiritual adviser of the wealthy merchant Orgon. But all is not as it seems, and as Orgon falls further under the influence of his new companion, the whole town is talking. Is he a friend, a fraud, a saint or a hypocrite?

The family members smell a rat, and amid the frivolity of 17th-century society, they hatch a plan to outwit the wily deceiver before he brings their household crashing down.

Although set in Paris in the 1660s, the play's themes are universal and timeless, and its story is completely relevant to contemporary Jamaica, with its proliferation of con-artists, dishonest public figures, ponzi-schemers and religious frauds.