Good afternoon and welcome to Con Con, the conference for swindlers, mountebanks, and the individuals who love them. Becoming a member of us at present are two actors, André De Shields and Matthew Broderick, who, in separate productions, have lately performed or are nearly to play Tartuffe, the falsely pious rip-off artist on the coronary heart of Molière’s 1664 comedy of the identical identify. At this time’s Con Con session is being held within the convention room of the Greenwich Home Music Faculty, which conveniently has a patio, ought to the 2 conventioneers’ theatrical rivalry give option to name-calling and bitch-slapping.
De Shields arrived first, sporting a buffalo-plaid toque and a mien of utter gameness. (“Let’s speak about it, let’s speak about it!” he stated.) Then got here a sheepish Broderick, who’d walked over from his city home close by, the place he’d been studying strains for his flip as Tartuffe, at New York Theatre Workshop. The gents, although followers of one another’s work, struggled to recollect the event on which they’d met, in 2022—till De Shields recalled, “It was the birthday of, uh, argh . . .”
Broderick, who had on a nubby blue sweater, referred to as out, “Harvey Fierstein!”
As soon as seated, Broderick turned to De Shields, whose portrayal of Tartuffe, on the Home of the Redeemer, featured preacher-style oration and a hip-gyrating cowl of “Feeling Good.” “I’m prepared for any ideas,” Broderick stated. De Shields put forth the concept Tartuffe, a charlatan who conjures up the gullible patriarch Orgon to vouchsafe each his dwelling and his daughter’s hand in marriage, isn’t a person however a spirit or an extraterrestrial.
Broderick didn’t disagree. “It looks as if he could be whoever he desires to be,” he stated, “relying on who he’s speaking to.” Former Broderick roles—Ferris Bueller and Professor Harold Hill—sprang to thoughts.
The speak turned to a sure Bible-hawking President. Whereas Broderick’s portrayal of Tartuffe won’t learn by stated President, De Shields’s manufacturing was billed as “an exorcism of hypocrisy.” “Once I sing ‘Ave Maria’ as Tartuffe, the viewers is, like, ‘What?! No!’ They object,” De Shields stated. “However I’m making an attempt to get their goat. I wish to know the way lengthy is it going to take so that you can discover that Trump is fucking you over. Tartuffe is doing expertly what Trump thinks he has a expertise for.”
Broderick requested if De Shields’s audiences certainly spoke aloud. De Shields stated, “The Baptists do. The Episcopalians don’t.”
The 2 actors mentioned an outline of Tartuffe given within the play by Dorine, the maid. “In our translation, by Ranjit Bolt, Dorine says, ‘How may anybody be drawn to you? There’s a lot flesh—it’s simply hanging off you,’ ” De Shields stated.
Broderick countered that, in his model, tailored by Lucas Hnath, “she simply says I’ve ‘wrinkly buns.’ ”
“That’s simple sufficient to attain, wrinkly buns,” De Shields stated.
Broderick: “True, I feel I can handle that.”
Had the 2 actors had run-ins with con males off the stage? “Who hasn’t?” De Shields requested.
“Don’t make me come over there and activate your mouth-opener thingy.”
Cartoon by Amanda Chung
Broderick specified one supply of flimflammery in his life: “Kids.”
