Judy Klass’s play–After Tartuffe–has been published by Next Stage Press!

Posted by malonj9 on Wednesday, March 22, 2023 in News.

After Tartuffe: A reimagining of Molière’s Tartuffe, set in a Christian Fundamentalist post-apocalyptic America.

The population has been decimated by the super-strain of the Avian Flu – stolen from a lab, probably by Fundamentalists.

     Oral is a rich businessman, and has opened his home to a former megachurch pastor who has been disgraced in sex scandals: the Reverend Chadwick Pusser. Oral’s son Daniel cannot be free with Tyler (the man he loves) with Pusser hanging around and planting hidden cameras.

     Tyler’s older brother Vaughn is engaged to Daniel’s younger sister Mary-Anne – but Oral decides to force Mary-Anne to marry Reverend Pusser–horrifying her. Pusser tells Oral to control his women; he cites Lot as the kind of upright man the Lord smiles on. Oral won’t listen to truth when Reverend Pusser makes a pass at Oral’s wife Alma, or hear the outspoken housekeeper, Doreen, who denounces Pusser and tries to get Mary-Anne to stand up for herself; even Daniel must reject a pass from Pusser.

Daniel reads SF alternate histories and suspects his own world is an aberration. He asks the website oracle.net for the original draft of Molière’s play Tartuffe – the one that was banned, before Molière watered the play down – thinking if he can get a pdf of the original, the universe will shift back to what it should be.

     It seems there is no end to Pusser’s hypocrisy OR to Oral’s gullibility … but the people who see through this evangelical con man keep on fighting for truth, and for change.