Does the land of Shakespeare care for 400-year-old Moliere?

PARIS – US actor Denis O’Hare could sense the ghost of Moliere smiling as he rode his co-star Olivia Williams like a horse on stage at London’s National Theatre.

Usually a rather cerebral place, the National’s audience was in stitches as O’Hare’s character Tartuffe, from the classic 17th-century French play, tried to disguise his adulterous antics as a bit of horseplay.

“The comedy translates across the centuries if you know what you’re doing,” O’Hare told AFP.

“Some of the funny was based on language, and some of it on sheer idiocy… But there are also great moments of pathos and human emotion that make it all the richer.”

That hit production of “Tartuffe” in 2019 was a reminder that…