About the Play:

L'Affaire Tartuffe is a full-length play by Marianne Ackerman. The Garrison Officers Rehearse Molière is inspired by historical fact: the first performance by anglophones in Québec was put on by British garrison officers stationed in Montreal. They chose to debut with Molière ... and they performed in French. Marianne Ackerman weaves a riveting drama of cross-cultural love affairs, the stranglehold of Church and State, and the seditious plans to join the Yankees to the south.

L'Affaire Tartuffe is about British garrison soldiers attempting a production of Moliere in Québec in 1774, more than a decade since the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, a year before American revolutionaries made an unsuccessful attempt to invade the province. The British garrison in Montreal is rehearsing Molière's Tartuffe, hoping to impress the local ladies with their French effort. Matters are complicated by the Church, however, which had banned theatre productions in Québec since 1694, and is especially loathe to allow a production of the blasphemous Tartuffe. Political intrigue gets in the way too, as locals and officers get swept up the romance of the revolution to the south, plotting treason in Québec. And, naturally, there is love – alliances of the heart which respect no political, cultural or linguistic borders.

L'Affaire Tartuffe was first staged in 1990 at the venerable Centaur Theatre, the oldest English-language theatre in Montréal.

Cast: 3 female, 7 male

What people say:

"A magnificent play, a real tour de force." — La Presse

"A more timely political piece of stagecraft would be hard to imagine. The Bloc would hate it. So would the Reform Party. The mainstream feds should go down on their knees and wish they'd siphoned off some of it for their enfeebled campaign." — The Toronto Star

"It's a play of sweeping scope, Shakespearean ambition, worthy intentions and delicious flashes of sniping wit. And it takes its cue from an actual event. In 1774, British garrison officers performed two Molière plays in Montreal." — The Montreal Gazette

"...a theatrical achievement of epic proportions.... L'Affaire Tartuffe may well be considered an important milestone in the history of theatre in Montreal in either of its two languages." — The Suburban

About the Playwright:

Marianne Ackerman is a Canadian novelist, playwright and and journalist. Co-founder and former Artistic Director of Theatre 1774, she has written several plays, including L'Affaire Tartuffe. Born in Belleville, Ontario, Marianne Ackerman studied at Carleton University, the Sorbonne and the University of Toronto. She lived in France for a number of years, and currently lives in Montreal.