A revival of the RSC’s 2018 production, this reimagined version by a comic-duo classic, kicks the prayer mat to have real talk about religious hypocrisy, family dynamics and the hostile environment.
Based on Moliere’s French comedy classic, writers Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto (of Goodness Gracious Me & Citizen Khan fame) reinterpret the story by following the Pervaiz family: father and patriarch, Imran (Nagra), is enamoured by a bogus Islamic holy-man from Small-Heath, Tartuffe (Khan), whose obsession with what Tartuffe can do for his crisis of religion and identity becomes the laugh-fuelled disaster upon which this version is based, exposing the hypocrisy and inner-workings of culture vs religion.
The play sees charlatan Tartuffe attempt to make the Pervaiz family ‘proper Muslims’, but as the rest of the family quickly cotton-on to the con taking hold of their family, Imran is blissfully and blindly unaware. He throws out his wannabe-rapper son, Damee, played brilliantly by Salman Akhtar, ignores his wife, Amira’s (Campbell) concerns of Tartuffe’s inappropriate sexual advances and even tries to bond Tartuffe to the family by proposing a marriage between his daughter Mariam (Bain). To Imran, Tartuffe represents the religion more than the scripture, and it’s both painfully reminiscent and hilariously alien to be confronted by this.
The play interrogates the double standards of behaviour in Islam (or indeed any religion) and the need to appear pious, framed around a father’s need to represent himself as a devoted adherent, regardless of whether it destroys the whole family.
With a set that merges a family home and an open mosque, it breathes life into these characters as much as it holds them. Maxwell’s movement brings an interesting edge between choreographed and natural sequences, highlighting the message of the play. One of the criticisms may be that the characters are too stereotypical, but they are in fact deep, complex and rooted in truths that the Muslim community will recognise only too well; incorporating a Bosnian Muslim character (a usually overlooked section of the Muslim community) as the Pervaizes’ long-time cleaner and the effective narrator of the play, is a wonderful creative choice to spotlight persecuted Muslim groups in our contemporary times. Director Iqbal Khan ensures that the play leaves us questioning our devotion to the truths we hold dear, and whilst it would’ve been great to hear more from the women in the play, this is perhaps the satirical point of the show.
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