The Imaginary Invalid

“The Imaginary Invalid”

By Moliere

Adapted by Bill Irwin from a translation by Doug Skinner

Directed by Brandon J. Dirden

Produced by Roundabout Theatre Company at the Todd Haimes Theatre

What a disappointment!  A new production of one of Moliere’s funniest (and insightful) comedies – “The Imaginary Invalid” has come to Broadway. Produced by one of the leading Broadway non-profits, The Roundabout Theatre Company, it seemed like a sure success when first announced. The cast was so promising with the extraordinarily talented Bill Irwin playing the grumpy “I-want-to-be- sick” old man and a wonderful supporting cast including Brooks Ashmanakas as the deceitful doctor; the versatile Dylan Baker as the invalid’s brother.; and the commanding Crystal Dickinson as Argan’s second wife. But too much of a good thing does not guarantee an enjoyable 90 minutes and this production is doggedly overblown.

The program notes that Mr. Irwin adapted a translation by Doug Skinner and collaborated with the production’s director, Brandon J. Dirden, in his Broadway debut.  It seems that “bigger, bigger, bigger” was the primary stage direction.  Mr. Irwin is a versatile performer.  He became famous as a pantomime clown that amazingly commanded laughter and tears without uttering a single word.  More recently, I saw his wonderfully convincing performance in the contemporary comedy, “Eureka Day,” at Broadway’s other non-profit Manhattan Theatre Club.  But the walloping over-acting by the entire company robbed Moliere’s final masterpiece of most of its laughs and all of its insight. Yes, there were moments when Mr. Irwin used his exaggerated mime as effectively as he has in the past.  But those moments were few and far between.  Everyone else was shouting and waving and stomping.

My disappointment may have been colored by a very enjoyable 90-minute production of “The Imaginary Invalid” that I saw a little over a year ago, produced Off-Broadway by the Red Bull Company.  They describe their mission as focusing on “the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as our cornerstone, Red Bull Theater is New York City’s destination for dynamic performances of great plays that stand the test of time.”  That cast was headed by the talented Mark Linn-Baker as Argon and he knew when to provoke laughter and when to show Moliere’s reflections on humanity. If only Mr. Irwin and Mr. Dirden had brought a similar balance to their production, a new audience would come to enjoy a classic comedy style that matched laughter with social and psychological satire.

I must admit I have a personal relationship to this work by Moliere.  In my early days as a college theatre director, I staged a production of this archetypal classic.  Alas, it was one my worst directing failures as a young thespian.  I must have been stimulated by some type of classic play turned modern that I had seen performed by a Los Angeles’ equity-waiver theater in the late 1970s. I asked my talented costume designer to dress each character from a different period ranging from classic Renaissance to Bohemian hippies.  I wanted to introduce my audience  to “modern staging” of classics. Needless to say, it fell flat with my conservative northern LA county audience.  Roundabout’s production team had lots of fun with exaggerating traditional costuming that got several of the production’s all-too-rare laughs.  If only the cast did not work so hard to overpower their costumes, this might have been an enjoyable 90 minutes.