Tartuffe

Photo: Erica Parise

Tartuffe is a play for our time, wherever and whenever one sets it; judging from his new Great Depression adaptation, Jeff Cohen, Artistic Director of Dog Run Rep and director of this production, understands this. His verse is primarily conversational, but it is elevated where it needs to be -- elevated, however, not into self-conscious poetics, but into the tones and rhythms of high comedy, especially the American line that runs from vaudeville through the great TV sitcoms of the 1950s. To "fund" his vision of the play, Mr. Cohen has at hand an embarrassment of riches in the form of a superb cast, including Christina DeCicco (Glinda in the Wicked national tour), Tom Ford (By Jeeves on Broadway), and a somewhat underused Brian Linden, who was so wickedly foppish in The Country Wife two years ago. It's almost criminal that you only have to pay off-off-Broadway prices for the level of talent on display here. Go quickly, there are too few performances and not many seats at each.

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