Review: The Imaginary Invalid Is Molière on Ozempic

“Science is real,” an ostensibly sick man shouts to his daughter as she angrily storms offstage in Jeffrey Hatcher’s new adaptation of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid, now performing with Red Bull Theater at New World Stages. A brisk and enjoyable 80-minute English-language adaptation of a timeless French comedy, it is unlikely to prompt similar behavior in the audience.

But Angelique (Emilie Kouatchou) has good reason to be outraged. Her hypochondriac father, Argan (Mark Linn-Baker), has promised her in marriage to the son of one of his doctors, Diafoirus (Arnie Burton plays all three of Argan’s doctors in a spectacular ballet of quick changes). He figures he’ll get a lifetime of free consultations out of it.

But Angelique is in love with Cléante (John Yi, lovably dim). Argan’s second wife, Béline (Emily Swallow), thinks the wayward girl should be sent to a convent, but she has ulterior motives. As long as Angelique remains, Béline stands no chance of inheriting her rich husband’s fortune, scheme as she might with Dr. Bonnefoi (Manoel Felciano), the lawyer she’s schtupping. It’s all very French.

And it takes on some urgency when we finally meet the doctor’s son, Thomas (Russell Daniels proves that the best comic performances derive from treating the stakes with real seriousness). A lumbering oaf of a man inexplicably dressed in a sailor’s uniform, he ludicrously hides behind his much smaller father like a shy toddler. Alarmingly, he informs the room that he too is about to become a doctor. He reads from his dissertation on how to reform healthcare payment: “The idea is you pay for your treatment first, in installments, then when you get sick and need a doctor, you pay more.”

This accurate description of this country’s idiotic system of health insurance represents the most stinging satire in this version of the play. Hatcher has excised Argan’s brother Béralde, the most explicit source of Molière’s critique of doctors (essentially, that they are less interested in healing than telegraphing their class superiority through arcane terminology—a charge that lamentably holds up 352 years later). It’s also true that this brotherly debate typically stops the plot in its tracks and would absolutely do the same to director Jesse Berger’s agreeably breezy production.

While The Imaginary Invalid doesn’t have the teeth of previous Berger-Hatcher collaborations like The Alchemist and The Government Inspector, it does succeed as a showcase for sparkling comic performances. Leading the way as Argan’s mouthy maid Toinette is Sarah Stiles, whose line readings are drier than yesterday’s baguette. Swallow excels as the gold-digging wife, returning to the stage with a sledgehammer and a smudged face, as she has literally been digging for gold in the walls of the house. Playing the rich old fart at the center of the tale, Linn-Baker proves to be an excellent straight man for these outsize characters. You cannot help but laugh at the severity of his expression climbs on all fours for his examination.

No performances are larger or more memorable than the three that Burton delivers as Dr. Purgon, Dr. Diaforoirus, and Dr. Fleurant. As the latter, he affects a German accent while holding what appears to be a steampunk pressure washer. He’s there to administer an enema.

The enema jokes belong to Molière, but the pressure washer is all properties designer Lauren Page Russell, who has collaborated seamlessly with scenic designer Beowulf Boritt. A brocaded dentist’s chair occupies center stage in a Louis XIV-style salon, the walls decorated with images of ghastly antique medical procedures.

It provides an excellent backdrop for the ruffles and bows of Tilly Grimes’s imaginative costumes, which gesture toward 17^th-century authenticity using more contemporary fabrics (I especially appreciated Cléante’s denim waistcoat). Choreographer Tracy Bersley has swapped out French ballet for door-slamming farce, underscored by Greg Pliska’s zany original music and beautifully executed by this top-notch cast.

It probably won’t make you think very hard about our unhealthy relationship with medicine, but The Imaginary Invalid is a perfectly delightful summer romp—a fine reason to enter a darkened theater on a nice June day.