You know the play is in trouble when Moliere’s Argan (Bill Irwin) trots off to the toilet after his morning enema — and he can’t get a solid round of laughter from the audience.
Only a few nervous giggles also greet Argan’s harridan of a second wife, Beline (Crystal A. Dickinson), when she thinks her husband is dead and, out of sheer joy, does a quick striptease.
Even more despondent is the audience response when Argan’s daughter, Angelique (Ava Lalezarzadeh), and her lover, Cleante (Daniel Croix Henderson), stage an improvised opera to mock the old man for demanding she instead marry a doctor who can care for him. Are we supposed to be amused that he can sing and she can’t?
In other words, this revival of “The Imaginary Invalid,” which opened Thursday at the Roundabout’s Todd Haimes Theatre, has a bad case of anemia despite Brandon J. Dirden directing the Moliere classic as if it were a screwball comedy. The extravagant costumes, by Karen Perry, would be considered excessive for even the silliest of Rossini’s comic operas.
Back in the 17th Century, this French comedy about a sick man who’s not really sick probably ran over three hours with two liquor-laced intermissions. Irwin’s adaptation cuts it down to an interminable 90 minutes with no break to get a much-needed drink.
A couple of actors do break through the stultifying slapstick and manage to be genuinely funny. Playing one of the charlatan doctors, Brooks Ashmanskas somehow morphs Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lady into Billie Burke’s Good Witch of the North. He makes his wavy blond wig, by Nikiya Mathis, every bit as delightful as Cole Escola’s brunette curls in “Oh, Mary!”
Equally absurd is the black pageboy (again by Mathis) worn by Hiram Delgado, playing yet another quack. His high-pitched squeal of a voice immediately slaps this “Imaginary Invalid” into shape. I’m not sure if he’s doing a parody of Hank Azaria voicing Apu Nahasapeemapetion on “The Simpsons,” or not. Whatever, Delgado is a real comic star.
There’s also a charming moment at the play’s end when Argan has finally been cured of all his phobias. Irwin performs a sweet little soft-shoe dance with a cane. It’s a lot more fun than any of his character’s many enemas.
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