Combining “comedie-ballet” with satire, the 17th century playwright Moliere received the patronage of Louis XIV and entertained the highest court of France with plays that mocked the foolishness of the next lower rung of the social ladder. Moliere’s target was the folly of the rising middle class: religious hypocrisy in Tartuffe; greed in The Miser; marriage in School for Wives; social airs in The Bourgoise Gentleman (if you listen closely to today’s performance, you can catch inside references to these other well-loved Moliere plays).
In The Imaginary Invalid, Moliere turned his wit to the excesses of medical arrogance. It is one of the great ironies of theatre history that Moliere, suffering from tuberculosis at the time he created the character of the not-really-sick Argan, literally died while playing the part. He collapsed with a coughing fit on stage during act three. While he finished the performance, he died several hours after the curtain went down.
The Imaginary Invalid enjoyed a robust, crowd-pleasing 300 year history before I first discovered it as a teen and basically fell in love with it. My introduction to Moliere was by a rival high school, and they went all-out “neo-classic” with their production, with elaborate 17th century costumes, a period set, a harpsichord score, and the stiff language of a stuffy old translation. I thought I’d be bored to death. Instead, I nearly died laughing.
In the adaptation you’ll see here today, we see the same story “updated” in a 60’s-inspired, pop-music-infused, Austin-Powers-evoking version that originally premiered at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2011, at the height of the health care debate. It seemed the perfect choice for our school this year. Not only did The Imaginary Invalid suit our search for a small-cast musical comedy, but it also has given us an opportunity to kick off our school’s three year partnership with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with a kind of homage to the many ways OSF makes classic works relatable to today’s audiences, especially youthful ones.
Why are the classics so relevant today? Human foolishness, it seems, has a long shelf-life. Playwrights like Moliere, whether working in tragedy or comedy, take this foolishness as their raw material. They play with it, revealing the chaos of our lives. The real work of the theatre practitioner -- whether in the cast or crew -- is to restore order and make it public.
The restoration of order is built into the structure of most comedy, including this one. It is also built into the rehearsal process and into the experience of being any kind of an artist. There is a solution to everything when dedication, passion, and duct tape are applied. As in rehearsal, so it is in today’s story. In the end, the lovelorn will find their soulmates; the ethically-challenged doctors will slink off into the shadows; the hypochondriac will reject the snake oil cures and instead find hope in healthy relationships instead.
And the artist -- represented here by the musician Guy, standing in for all those who will starve or cough or climb their way through the chaos, all the way until the curtain falls -- will play a song that will change someone’s world view.
