Hackley students have been on a hunt. A hunt for salt. Every lunch room table is lacking a salt shaker and it is common to hear students verbally express their frustration. Though unable to find the shakers, students recently found small adverts for the fall play: Tartuffe. With its colorful costumes and stage design, witty dialogue, and standout performances, Tartuffe had enough flavor to hold the audience over till the next production.

The titular character, Tartuffe, came to life thanks to junior Levi DeMatteo’s acrobatic performance. Tartuffe is a con artist who infiltrates a Orgon’s (junior Julio Sanchez) family with the plan to someday take over their fortune and home. Orgon becomes so infatuated with Tartuffe that he arranges a marriage between Tartuffe and his daughter, Marine (sophomore Aurora Strauss), although she truly love Valere (sophomore Jack Clark). The two play a lovelorn couple with great capacity.

Tartuffe’s plan slowly unravels as other characters get involved. Orgon’s wife, Elmire (senior Heather Vega); his son, Damis (sophomore Matthew Bonanno); his mother, Mme Pernelle (freshman Hannah Goodwin-Pierce); his son-in-law, Clenate (junior Katherine Xue); the house staff, Dorine and M. Loyal (senior Sophia Bannister and freshman Nicole Mondrus); and a police officer (sophomore Bujana Mulosmani) eventually see through Tartuffe’s guise and develop comedic plans to have incredulous Orgon see it as well. After various scenes of skirt lifting, tongue wagging, finger pointing, fighting, hiding, and yelling,they succeed. Reaching its climax, the drama dies down and Orgon’s family appears reunited and happier than ever.

Tartuffe was yet another well directed and organized piece brought the Hilltop by Mr. Teacher. It was hard to look away from the stage given the magnificent job the crew and tech team had been done with the costumes and set. This year saw the emergence of a new stage manager, Sarah Lucente, who did a splendid job filling in the shoes of last year’s three-time manager, Meghan Philpott ‘14 – who was honored with her own character Flipote. There were various new faces on stage, but so much energy was put into each performance that it was easy to separate the actor or actress from the character. More importantly, the relationships between cast members seemed very genuine and organic – something which could be noted on-stage, and off, with a cast released Tartuffe trailer replete with rehearsal footage.

You can expect to see these faces return to the stage in the Upper School performance of The Dining Room, coming this February.

Gallery • 19 Photos

All photos by Chris Taggart.