“Tartuffe” Lampoons the Aristocracy at Portland State University

PSU’s School of Music and Theater will stage Molière’s 17th-century satire later this month at Lincoln Hall.

Cassie Funmaker as Tartuffe (Chad Lanning, courtesy of Portland State University)
By Andrew Jankowski

Tartuffe is coming to Portland. Not the Spry Wonder Dog, which diehard King of the Hill fans might reflexively fill in, but more likely Bobby Hill’s clown college inspiration—which King Louis XIV found so offensive he banned performances for five years.

Portland State University’s School of Music and Theater will stage Molière’s 17th century French satire Tartuffe at Lincoln Hall. Opening Thursday, Feb. 27 and running through Sunday, March 8, Tartuffe follows the titular scammer (Cassie Funmaker) as he plays Mr. Steal-Your-Girl posing as a charismatic holy man in the home of the wealthy Orgon (Chloe Dukart), going after not only his wife and daughter but the family fortune as well. Tartuffe’s gaslighting and fraudulence just so happens to resemble hucksters in power across the ages from Versailles to Mar a Lago.

“Tartuffe balances on a razor’s edge between danger and delight,” said Christine Freije, the show’s director, in a statement. ”It’s a profound joy to bring this play to life in 2025, at a time when our political and social landscape is riddled with grifters who hide behind masks of moral superiority and powerful men who enable them.”

Tartuffe is one of Molière’s biting parodies lampooning the aristocracy, including The School for Wives and The Misanthrope, written while cashing their patronage checks. Molière died performing onstage in 1673 during his play The Imaginary Invalid, but his theater company, the Comedie-Fracaise, survived the French Revolution and still perform in Paris’ La Maison de Molière as the world’s oldest active theater company.

SEE IT: Tartuffe at Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall, 1620 SW Oak St., 503-725-3011, portlandstate.universitytickets.com. 7:30 pm Feb. 27–March 1, 2 pm Sunday, March 2. $6–60, free with valid PSU student ID.

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.