Tartuffe (13 Oct 1965)

 A French farce.

Premise

Tartuffe convinces the rich merchant Organ he is a saint. Organ agrees for Tartuffe to marry his daughter although Tartuffe is actually interested in seducing Organ's wife.

Cast

• Ron Haddrick as Tartuffe
• Jennifer Wright as Elmire
• Ron Morse as Organ
• Doreen Warburton as Dorine
• John Gregg as Cleante
• Charles Little as Damis
• Lucia Duchenski as Marianne
• Tony Bonner as Valere
• Roberta Hunt as Mmse Pernelle
• John Stevens as Loyale
• Jerome White as an officer
• Doris Goddard as street girl
• Louis Wishart, Gordon Mutch, Ken Chard
  

Original play

Moliere's play was first performed in 1664. It was controversial in its day because of its attack on false piety (among other reasons). It gets performed and adapted a lot particularly in France.

Here's a link to the play.

Miles Maleson did the translation.

Other adaptations

Too many to count but there was a version on Oz radio in 1961.  There were ABC radio versions in 1952, 1953 and 1957.

FW Murnau did a feature in Germany in 1925.

There were a lot of versions for European TV in the 1960s-  Holland, Belgium, Sweden. A French one in 1962.

The BBC adapted it for radio in 1947, 1951 and 1955. In 1964 they also broadcast the opera Britten did based on the play. BBC did it for TV in 1971.

 Production

John Warwick and Henri Safran adapted Malleson's translation of Moliere's play.

It was shot at the ABC's Gore Hill studios. Desmonde Dowling did the design. Quentin Hole designed the costumes.

Director Henri Safran said the play was "less a satire of hypocrisy than a condemnation of those who, by exaggerating their religious devotion, become prey for the cupidity of imposters."

The Canberra Times visited the set during rehearsals and did a profile on the play. This is a detailed account of the process. 

TARTUFFE ON CAMERA By JOHN HOWARD

A FEW weeks ago I visited a 17th century drawing room. It was on September 7, to be precise. Its exact location was Gore Hill, Sydney. To continue this precision, I should say “rooms”, in the plural, and “part of”; for one wall of each of the three adjacent rooms was missing, and in the fourth corner of the square so formed, the television cameras would operate. Saving the absence of any ceilings, and the walls already referred to, the impression was one of period elegance, even opulence. It was a moment before one realised that this was a setting for a play. The impression then was one of painstaking attention to detal.

It was the creation of Sydney designer Desnonde Downing for Henri Safran’s production of Tartuffe, by Moliere, and it was executed entirely in the ABC’s Gore Hill workshop. Two storeys in height, it sated the eye with brilliant but tasteful colour, forming a background for actors dressed in Quentin Hole’s equally lavish costumes. This would all be reduced to black and white. Hateful medium.

Patterned translucent plastic in a dividing door between two rooms suggested costly glass. The wooden balustrade on a staircase was authentically carved. Even the period chairs were specially made by ABC carpenters. none Help At 3 pm the actors, studio hands, floor manager, camera men, sound men and technicians were taking a break on the set. They had been rehearsing since noon.

Two floors above them in the double-glazed control room, there was rather more activity and still more tension. The tension could be said to be radiating towards, rather than from Henri Safran.

In the twofold drama about to begin, he, would have the role in the room upstairs of a captain or a conductor. His work was done, really. If it did not all happen as planned, though, he would have to act, and act fast. Safran, a young Frenchman, cannot, one thinks, possibly be as young as he looks. In spite of his youth, his voice is lent authority by his reputation as one of the finest television producers Australia has seen.

His interpretation of Tartuffe, he suggested, would be one to displease the purist with too much respect for classical traditions. Having seen it, I think even they will be delighted. Only the prurient will be likely to find offence in the naughty M. Tartuffe.

In the control room Safran, in horn-rimmed glasses and white polo-neck sweater, sits before six television screens. Four of them show the pictures taken by the studio cameras (three pedestals and one crane). A fifth shows the picture being replayed from a previously recorded tape and the sixth duplicates the picture being selected at any time.

To Safran’s left sits his script-assistant, Sarah Graham, with the tools of her trade; “talk-back” microphone, stopwatch, pencil and the massive camera-script that forms a detailed blueprint for the production. This lists in numbered order the hundreds of shots that will be taken and the camera to take them, with a description of the image and the corresponding actors’ dialogue, along with the time (in seconds) that should have elapsed. To his right, also with a script, is the vision mixer or switcher who will physically select by pushing buttons, the picture from the required camera or tape.

To his right again, a technician controls the quality of the picture from each camera. He has another full set of monitors. There are more monitors in the adjacent soundproof room to the right where the lighting technician sits at his Wurlitzerlike Strand lighting console.

In another room on the other side, the sound mixer controls the balance of sound from the studio microphones and will mix-in music and sound effects from records, on cue from Miss Graham.

In another part of the building, the videotape operators have been alerted by Sarah Graham, over her microphone. The production is to be recorded on videotape. Parts of it have already been recorded, and these must be inserted at the appropriate split second, in the recording about to be made.

Safran hopes to make this final recording in one “take”, straight through, without stopping or editing the recording. On the other side of the lighting room, his attractive wife, Valerie, is watching the studio action from the visitors’ gallery.

In the studio, the technicians are at their posts; the floor manager, who wears headphones also, has alerted the actors. All are in their places. The cameramen have their first shots in focus. Videotape is ready. Sound is ready. Lights are ready. The titles and opening scenes are on videotape. It is 3.30.

Sarah Graham calls “Roll video tape.” In a few seconds this pretaped segment ends — the switcher has punched up camera 2. “On one, ready 1. On two, ready 2. On three, ready 1. On four, ready 2. On five, ready 1 . . “

For the next 75 minutes Sarah Graham will call the number of every shot according to her camera-script and “ready” the camera next to be taken. Henri Safran sits in silence, smoking a cigarette which he drags from his lips from time to time with an impatient wave to his right.

He might be ashing it, but he is “beating time” for the switcher to get the precise rhythm he wants in cutting between two actors faster than Miss Graham can call breathlessly: “On fifty-five, ready 1, on fifty six, ready 2; on fifty seven, ready 1 . . . “ Something goes wrong. A missed shot? What? Safran’s right hand beats an insistent rhythm in the smoke-filled air. All he says, a second later, is “you’re on it” when he has corrected the slip that only the three of them will ever know about. “Ready videotape,” says Sarah Graham at 3.45. “Roll videotape.”

A long recorded insert. Safran stands, stretches his hands behind his neck, paces about the tiny cubicle unsmilingly. “Five minutes, studio.” “One minute studio.” “Ready 2.” “On eighty-three, ready 1 . . . “ It is beginning to become routine, Everything falls exactly into place. Possible for the observer to sit back and enjoy the play.

Ronald Morse, as Organ, looks as if he will get no better than he deserves at the hands of the villainous hypocrite Ron Haddrick, as Tartuffe. “Of course, heaven forbids certain pleasures, but one finds means of compromise.”

 4.15. A suggestion of a shadow of a microphone boom edges into the corner of a monitor. Safran sees it. “Boom! Boom!” It is gone. Miss Graham’s cues are perfect. While Tartuffe makes love to Jennifer Wright, as Elmire, we see reaction shots of Orgon hiding under the table. Actually, Orgon has been pre-recorded.

While the cameras follow Tartuffe and Elmire in the studio, the video tape has been cued so accurately that Orgon’s reactions can be cut in appropriately.

 4.25, “Roll videotape”, and the rest of the play has already been recorded. They break in the studio, but the cameras must remain ready for the closing credits. There is more relish in Safran’s stretching.

 4.43 and the last of the delightfully bawdy credits has rolled in front of camera 1. The producer thanks his team for their co-operation and effort, and it is everybody down to the studio for a beer and a look at the re-play.

When that is finished, 75 minutes later, the studio-hands have left little recognisable as a 17th century drawing room. It will appear, again, on ABC-3, on Wednesday next for another hour and a quarter, and then it will be gone. For ever?

Make up - Joan Minor. Cameramen - S Chung, P Knevitt, P Vendrell, C Graffin. Sound - N Cantrell. Vision mixer - C Garner. Technical producer - Fred Haynes. Assistant - P Tkachenko. Costume designer - Quentin Hole. Designer - Desmonde Downing. Producer - Henri Safran.

 Reception

The Canberra Times acclaimed it as one of the best productions of the year.

The Age called it "a thoroughly enjoyable experience."

TV Times criticised the elocution. Seriously.

 

The Age 16 Oct 1965 p 23

The Age 16 Oct 1965 p 23

Canberra Times 31 Dec 1965 p 7

The Age TV Guide 7 Oct 1965 p 3

Canberra Times 9 Oct 1965 p 9

SMH TV Guide 12 Oct 1965

SMH 14 Oct 1965 p 36

The Age 13 Oct 1965 p 14

TV Times Vic

TV Times Vic

Forgotten Australian TV plays: Tartuffe and The Taming of the Shrew
by Stephen Vagg
September 13, 2021
Stephen Vagg’s series on forgotten Australian TV plays looks at two adaptations of classic plays starring Ron Haddrick, The Taming of the Shrew (1962) and Tartuffe (1965).

Ron Haddrick had one of the best careers for an Australian actor who didn’t become really famous. Never a star, he seems to have been always respected, always admired, always employed. I’m sure it wasn’t that simple – even Cate Blanchett had her time on the two-minute noodles diet – but he managed to compile a truly impressive CV over the years. He even represented South Australia in Sheffield Shield too.

Haddrick was one of the mainstays of early Australian TV drama – I’ve written about other plays he’s appeared in like The Man Who Saw It, The Sweet Sad Story of Elmo and Me, Reunion Day and The Big Killing. Today, I’m discussing his appearances in local versions of The Taming of the Shrew and Tartuffe.

Shrew would be the best known of these two plays – it’s always been among Shakespeare’s most popular works with its ethically dodgy high concept (buccaneering man must seduce spitfire heroine)and two cracker star parts. Indeed, Taming of the Shrew knock-offs are so prevalent as to form their own sub-genre (eg The Quiet Man, Ten Things I Hate About You).

The ABC filmed it in 1962 with the leads played by Haddrick and Brigid Lenihan. Lenihan was an interesting actor about whom I knew little before researching this topic (she died in 1970, aged only 41). She was a New Zealander who had worked for years in London before moving to Sydney, where she was busy in theatre and television; among her performances in early TV plays were the title role in the musical Lola Montez (1962).

Neither she or Haddrick are conventionally good looking but they have plenty of spirit and spunk. The set design is very theatrical in a toy town way, as it was in another Shakespeare adaptation from director Alan Burke, The Merchant of Venice. The cast includes Judi Farr, fun as Bianca, and Richard Meikle as Tranio. There was some location filming in Centennial Park in Sydney, with Haddrick and Lenihan cavorting among the reeds and on horseback, which is interesting.

And because it’s never too late to make a swipe at a critic, I should mention that the television reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald (who on the whole liked the production) said it was “pleasing” to find Kate “making her famous acknowledgement of male superiority without the ironic twitching of the lips”. Because you wouldn’t want that to be ironic, hey?

Tartuffe is a comedy from famous French playwright Moliere. Moliere’s other works include The Imaginary Invalid and The Miser; Tartuffe, also known as The Imposter, is one of his most popular (apparently it’s the most performed play at the Comédie-Française in France). Gerard Depardieu starred in a 1984 film version.

The plot concerns a conman, Tartuffe (Haddrick) who has convinced a wealthy idiot called Orgon (Ron Morse) that Tartuffe is a saint. Most of the action concerns the efforts of Orgona’s family to point out to Orgon how dodgy Tartuffe is, but Orgon blindly insists his friend is awesome, even arranging marriage with Orgon’s daughter Mariane (Lucia Duchenski). It’s an all too believable tale with Tartuffe having many models in real life (eg Rasputin). So many, in fact, that French King Louis XIV had the play suppressed when it originally came out.

The ABC version aired in 1965, directed (very well) by Henri Safran. The cast all play it in the right style – it also includes Jennifer Wright (as Orgon’s wife Elmire), John Gregg (Elmire’s brother Cleante) and Skippy’s own Tony Bonner (as Mariane’s boyfriend, Valere).It was based on an adaptation of the play by English writer-actor Miles Malleson; the year before the ABC had filmed his adaptation of Turgenev’s A Provincial Lady (1964).

Watching Taming of the Shrew and Tartuffe is rather like subscribing to a season at the STC – which is very ABC. As I’ve said before in other articles, I don’t think there was much point in the ABC filming these for television over Australian scripts but they are well done, Tartuffe especially.

NAA Syd 65-66