What (Tartuffe) has in common with his 17th century counterpart is that he is…a thoroughly entertaining phony…Thomas’ adaptation is a clever piece of work. She follows Molière’s plot closely, inventively adapting scenes and characters to the TV studio situation. But the real pleasure of Thomas’ adaptation lies in the language. She maintains Molière’s rhymed-couplet structure but her parlance is distinctly contemporary. Thus, Dorine, Orgon’s floor manager, can say to the would-be seducer: “And I could see you naked as a jay/ and I would shrug and turn and walk away.” And later, the excited Tartuffe can talk about “getting it on.” It is lively, vivid language that is at once modern and old-fashioned, slangy and formal, recognizably Molière and obviously not.

Douglas J. Keating
Philadelphia Inquirer

Freyda Thomas’ new (Broadway) adaptation of the classic Tartuffe is set in a recording studio in the American south…the hypocritical title character is an oily televangelist -- and Orgon, who falls for Tartuffe's ersatz piety and gives them all his worldly goods, is the studio’s blustering owner... since the augmented title may lead you to think otherwise, let me hasten to report that the play is indeed Tartuffe, cast in Molière 's trademark couplets and following his familiar plot. Inasmuch as it's an adaptation rather than a translation, however, the syntax of those couplets has undergone some rather significant transformation. Consider the wonderfully cynical monologue that Thomas has furnished Tartuffe at the start of Act Two, wherein he plots each twist of the sermon he plans to deliver. Turning to the audience, he asks us to "... take out the largest bill you've got/and watch the devil shrivel on the spot." The rhythm and the context are pure Molière, but the locution is pure Pat Robertson.

Clifford A. Ridley
Philadelphia Inquirer

... much of the amusement comes from seeing how Thomas has managed to transpose the plot. She mixes in healthy doses of 20th-century jargon, which sound funniest when they come from the sassy Dorine (a paid companion in the original, here the station’s floor manager)... warning Orgon’s daughter... about the proposed arranged marriage with the preacher, she taunts, "it's clear you want to be Tartuffillated!” (which rhymes with "consummated") and, "Isn't this divine? You’ll open up your own cosmetics line."

Aileen Jacobson
Newsday, May 31st, 1996

... Freyda Thomas’ adaptation infuses the original text with amusing additions -- "Preaching, sir, is not performance art. When God speaks through you, it comes from the heart."

Sydney Weinberg
Time Out, June 5th 1996

This is a free and modern adaptation by Freyda Thomas... and yes it is quite funny... it's a lovely play.

Clive Barnes
New York Post, may 31st 1996

The notion of three setting Molière’s Tartuffe in the deep South, in the studio of a small time cable TV station, would have seemed daunting, if not perfectly foolhardy. As if to make dire straits suicidal, Freyda Thomas wrote her adaptation in rhymed couplets, modeled on those of the author, the classic 17th-century French satirist whose real name was Jean-Baptise Poquelin. Gadzooks, it works. Cleverly retitled Tartuffe: Born Again, Ms. Thomas’ script is crisp, her extreme resetting never jars with the original, whose flavor and lesson are sustained, the performances are spirited... some of Ms. Thomas’ rhymes are dazzling. Not so bad either, is the expressiveness in her script. While the first focus is properly on comedy, an audience that laughs at the character's insistence that "Preaching is not performance art" is an excellence that is getting the point behind the laugh. The result is an ideal transformation of a classic.

Martin Gottfried
New York Law Journal, May 31, 1996