When Molière’s “Le Malade imaginaire” was first performed in Paris in 1673, the play was also partly a ballet. Lively intermèdes abounded: Between all the actors’ sly scenes about untrustworthy doctors and unnecessary enemas, dancers would spring merrily about.
Now Bill Irwin’s ballet-free adaptation, “The Imaginary Invalid,” directed by Brandon J. Dirden for the Roundabout Theater Company on Broadway, produces the same sensation as those long-ago divertissements — grace, lightness, symmetry. “The Imaginary Invalid” is about silliness in expertise; “The Imaginary Invalid” is about expertise in silliness. Surfaces in Molière can be deceptive; deceptions in Molière can be of service.
In a featureless void, Irwin appears, wearing a long nightgown and a commedia dell’arte mask. He knocks the floor three times with a ceremonial staff, which “wakes” the show. When capering dottore clowns in academic gowns spill into the non-space, it disappears: The inky fabric floor slithers away, three forced-perspective verdigris walls glide in, and a white plasterwork ceiling drops from above. As this pretty, chocolate-box parlor assembles itself magically around him, Irwin takes his place in a big leather chair.
Voilà! He is Argan, the titular hypochondriac! He is also the rabbit in the hat.
This superb wordless sequence — the set designer is Beowulf Boritt; the movement director is Lorenzo Pisoni — reassures us that a show about a guy in a chair will move like a hummingbird. And once it’s spoken, Molière’s language (via Irwin, who uses Doug Skinner’s translation) does have a bird’s frantic, quick-beat tremolo. The rubber-faced, telescope-necked, precision-pratfaller Irwin may well be our greatest living clown. (I don’t want to jinx him by saying that he’s definitively No. 1, in case other clowns try to bump him off.)
Argan’s chair, where he demands that his household and his doctors all attend him, is a kind of Grand Siècle Barcalounger. He’s constantly getting tangled in its mechanical pop-up footrest; his maid, Toinette (Rachel Bloom, surprisingly unshowy here), must unstick him. He does frequently try to pop out of it: His quack doctors, Dr. Purgon (the brilliant Brooks Ashmanskas) and Dr. Diafoirus (Ashmanskas in a different hat), have prescribed twice-a-day colonics, so our dyspeptic hero is often, shall we say, on the go.
The message of the tart comedy, written by Molière right at the end of his life, is: “For what ails us all, there is no cure.” But there are pleasures, which may be almost as good. Argan’s sweet daughter Angelique (Ava Lalezarzadeh, the sparkling delight from last season’s “English”) hopes to pursue some of her own pleasures with her suitor Cleante (Daniel Croix Henderson).
Her gold-grubbing stepmother, Beline (Crystal A. Dickinson), would rather pack Angelique off to a nunnery, however, and Argan wishes his daughter to marry into a medical dynasty. He has selected the utterly unsuitable son of Dr. Diafoirus, the Latin-spouting Thomas (Hiram Delgado). Delgado plays several fools in the play, but none are as deliciously ridiculous as Thomas, who grins vacantly and preens fatuously under the Prince Valiant haircut of the irredeemable dork. (Nikiya Mathis designed the extremely goofy wigs.)
By the time Dylan Baker arrives as Argan’s reasonable brother Beralde, the nonsense is at a rolling boil. Baker flourishes his way through the doorway with a big ta da! gesture, wearing a gold-and-green ensemble so gorgeously dappled that it looks like the virtuosic costume designer Karen Perry put a belt on a landscape painting by Poussin and called it un jour.
Toinette assures Beralde that she has thought of a way to trick Argan out of his medical fixations, at which point, Beralde fondly, smilingly, says my favorite line in the show: “Yes — could it be … an idea more amusing than wise?” Beralde! How dare you.
Dirden’s exquisite production, though, is both amusing and wise. They will tell you at the door that it takes 90 minutes, but really that time vanishes in a swirl — of beautiful fabrics, sweet music, precisely timed jokes and the occasional “uh-oh” facial expression from Argan as he realizes he needs the loo.
I hesitate to lessen the enchantment by telling you that it’s relevant, too. I do think you could very easily enjoy “The Imaginary Invalid” as a hilarious, champagne-light bagatelle and never think about what it suggests about the predatory wellness industry, or about what it means to be ruled by a self-obsessed paterfamilias, who must be duped into thinking of anyone in the younger generation.
But Irwin will not entirely let us leave without thinking. Right at the end of this charming show, which has taken its jabs at bad medicine, his Argan addresses us with some true doctoring. You’ll have to go and see it to hear his prescription, which Irwin imparts with shining eyes and feet beginning to dance. I won’t tell you exactly what remedy he says you should take to make yourself feel better, but I can say that I tried it for 90 minutes at the Todd Haimes Theater. It worked for me.
The Imaginary Invalid Through Nov. 22 at the Todd Haimes Theater, Manhattan; roundabouttheatre.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.
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