Imaginary Invalid Is a Gas

Invalid_011cropped.jpgTalk about a health care crisis: This man is so worried about his bowels, heart and everything in between, that he decides to marry off his only daughter, against her will, to the doctor he absolutely must have around him night and day. He’ll never have to go out of network again.

In truth, there’s nothing wrong with Argan at all. After he beats his chest mightily at the beginning of the play to restart what he thinks is his stalled heart, he declares, Now I’ve injured my nipples.”

Invalid_463cropped.jpgWelcome to Moliere’s hilarious 17th century send-up of physicians and hypochondriacs, The Imaginary Invalid. It is currently being staged at Edgerton Park by Elm Shakespeare Company in a farce that resonates with our health care reform times.

For Moliere, the medical profession is beyond reform, and a bit like a village in Vietnam: He must destroy it first, dramatically, in order to save it.

In Jim Andreassi’s high-spirited production at Edgerton, there’s also a running farting gag,and commedia dell’arte aplenty, so don’t forget to bring a hot water bottle against the cold, your medicines and even your enemas. The final four performances of this low-comedy classic are Aug. 29 and Sept. 2, 4, and 6.

Argan’s daughter Angelique speaks in at least four different accents, from high English to a screechy country western. She loves not the young buffoon of a new doctor, Claude de Aria (pronounced diarrhea), but another, handsome Cleante. Being merely a substitute music teacher and not a doctor, he stands small chance of winning the lovely’s hand.

Invalid_102cropped.jpgEnter Toinette, Argan’s strong-minded servant, to arrange the full complement of door-slamming disguises, ruses, traps, tests, and misfires. Her own Marx Brothers-style doctor impersonation by play’s riotous end not only brings happiness to Angelique, but also unmasks Argan’s wife Beline’s gold-digging false empathy for his ills.

Miracle of miracle, she cures Argan as well by encouraging him to become a physician in his own right so he can truly heal himself. This last is accomplished in one of the most famous scenes in dramatic literature: a dance-ballet send-up of academia in which the whole cast, now berobed in blue and blowing children’s bubbles through wands, intones nonsensical Latin medical terms and incoherent chants, finally bestowing the diploma. For what more is required to become an M.D.? Surely not much knowledge, study, or judgment.

Moliere’s story is certainly here. But those who long for the wit of Tartuffe or The Misanthrope, or even the sense of high stakes and a touch of felt human relationship between characters important to farce, might be a little disappointed.

Invalid_028cropped.jpgThose aspects are, uh, relatively buried in the adaptation by Constance Congdon that Andreassi and company employ. Here physical comedy predominates and sex gags — and especially King Flatulence — reign supreme.

I wonder how many enema gags Moliere, who relied almost entirely on the patronage of Louis XIV and the royal circle for his livelihood, could have gotten away with at court. Maybe those bewigged and powdered folks had a lot more gas than history has thus far accounted for. If so, we have Elm Shakespeare to thank for that revelation, along with the great fun of this performance.

That said, the company’s energy starts high and never flags, and the shape-changing pastiche of styles from Marx Brothers to American musical to a slow-motion Chariots of Fire is often superb, as is the comic timing.

In addition to Andreassi’s Argan, other standout performances are Tamara Hickey as a tireless and stalwart Toinette, Mia Perovetz as Angelique, Keely Baisden as Beline, and the redoubtable Alvin Epstein as Doctor Purgeron.

You can see many of the same versatile actors in far different roles in Philip Barry’s Holiday. It runs in repertory with Moliere at Edgerton on Aug 28, 30, and Sept. 1, 3, and 5.

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