The Imaginary Invalid

The Tufts Arena Theater this week is reviving that grand king of all near-farcical comedies, Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid (Le malade imaginaire). This final work of the second universal genius of modern theatre can always stand revival; and I don't believe it has been seen here-abouts since the mediocre production at New England Mutual Hall in the 1940's.

Properly viewed, the play is just as timely today as it was in 1673. Despite its title, it is not just a portrait of a hypochondriac; nor is it just another volley in Moliere's life-long campaign against Baroque medical quackery and incompetence. The main theme of the play is the struggle between fraud and stupidity--a warning against too great a trust in alleged experts and arrant professionalism. Of the two dozen or so personages in the piece, only two are natural and honest human beings. The rest are all hypocrites or bluffers. Healthy Argan pretends to be riddled with illness; his inheritance-eyeing wife Beline protests familial affection; the small daughter Louison feigns death; Doctor Diafoirus maintains black is white; his nitwit son Thomas presumes to be clever; suitor Cleante impersonates a music teacher; the maid Toinette disguises herself as a doctor--and so on with the rest.

The present production has both laudable and disappointing aspects. It lacks real style; but this is extremely hard to achieve short of the Comedie Francaise. Still, director Marston Balch errs in trying to get by on farce. Although the third act has undeniable farce in it, it is a mistake to consider the whole play a farce: it is high comedy, near-farce if you like, but not true farce. I am sure the first two acts would come off better if treated in a less overdone manner.

One must also realize that a director cannot always give the big roles to the best members of a summer repertory company. The plums, and the experience that goes with them, must be shared. Thus it often happens that the best possible casting must bow to the young actors' chance for development, which is after all the prime object of a group like this.

The taxing title role of Argan (acted by Moliere himself on the day he died) is a bit too much for Jack Kaufman at this time. He has not yet learned how to match his voice and actions to the age of his part. Robert Leibacher, aided by a red wig and appropriately pasty makeup, is fine as the simpleton Thomas; and Lake Bobbitt, with literally a seven-inch nose, paints a wonderful picture of the palsied President of the Medical Faculty in the epilogue.

The epilogue, in fact, is the best part of the Tufts show. Written in macaronic Latin, it is the classic take-off on pompous academic ceremony and all its mumbo-jumbo. In it Argan himself passes an oral examination and becomes a doctor. The charlatanism of the whole proceeding is epitomized in the fact that, no matter what illness Argan is asked to prescribe for, his answer (in dog-Latin) is always, "Give an enema, let blood, then purge." The singing and dancing, and the comical masks and over-sized enemas contribute much to the total effect.

The program states that "the original music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier" is being used. (Some of what we hear, however, is by Lully, who, to be sure, had been Moliere's composer until a feud parted them.) Since Tufts has gone to the trouble to dig up authentic music and has billed the production properly as "a comedy-ballet," I wish the group had made the extra effort to include the usually omitted prologue and ballet interludes. Tufts then would doubtless have had the honor of giving the first complete performance of the work in this country.

This production is using Morris Bishop's new translation, which is serviceable if not distinguished. I question Bishop's anachronistic substitution of such modern diagnoses as appendicitis and peritonitis for the maladies mentioned by Moliere.

As I said, the play deals with the contrast between what things are said to be and what things are, between words and evidence. Drama critics are no less immune than medical experts from Moliere's campaign; so don't rely on my words, but go to Tufts for the evidence.