REVIEW: Side-splitting 'Invalid' at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company

The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company's logo says, "exciting…energetic…entertaining." With its "classics in the box" presentation of Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid, the company delivers all three with some of each to spare. This sparkling treat has been lovingly guided both on the page and stage by Ken Elston, who is both translator and director. A vanity production this is not, and it is crystal clear from the moment you walk into this fun space (amazing what can be done in a converted elementary school gymnasium!) that Mr. Elston has surrounded himself with a cast and technical staff that has done its homework.

A quick perusal of the director's notes in the program tells us a bit about Moliere's style of using interludes which infuse song, dance, and commedia-inspired sketches to comment upon the action taking place. (It also includes the ironic story of Moliere's own death during the fourth performance of this play about a hopeless hypochondriac, with the playwright himself in the role!) But nothing prepares you for how these interludes will be portrayed in this translation. Like cannon fire from a pirate ship, the show explodes into action from the first second, letting all concerned know that we are in for an evening of self-reverential comedy, that is smart, hysterically funny, and perhaps to the relief of some, very modern. For while the action takes place centuries ago, we know that this classic is being brought into the 21^st Century as the cast recites an a stylized unison, the various warnings to be found at the local Rite Aid for certain modern medicines (takers of the infamous little blue pill may be surprised to find that the possibility of a painful prolonged erection may be the LEAST of their worries!) Similarly, while the language of this translation is firmly rooted in the patterns and cadences of classic drama, it is delivered so clearly, and with just the right amount of anachronisms, that even the least experienced theatergoer will have no trouble understanding a moment of it.

Fortunate enough to speak these delicious lines are a uniformly well-cast, well-prepared and confident cast of actors, both company and non-company members. One relaxes when it becomes immediately and wonderfully clear that this play is in capable hands – no opening night jitters here. Each member of the cast is clearly having a ball, and judging from the hearty laughter throughout, the audience is, too. The strenuous (he may be offstage 5 minutes total) title role of the miserly, self-involved "invalid" Argan is played with a Scrooge-like glee by Nathan Thomas, who talks about enemas and pills like they are the keys to Nirvana. As Angelique, the daughter in love with a man who is not the doctor her father wants her to marry, Valerie Fenton scores a comedic triumph in a role that could easily have become a shrill one-note ingénue in lesser-hands. Her mock-opera scene (I won't even try to explain it here) with the charming Christopher Niebling as Cleante, the real man of Angelique's dreams is a highlight among highlights and may be the seven funniest minutes of any local production in years. In a sharp departure from his last CSC role (Coriolanus), Patrick Kilpatrick shows that even the handsomest, albeit dullest, knives in the drawer can be a comic goldmine. I hope he isn't permanently bruised from the beating he takes as he gets alternately smacked and rubbed by, among others, his mother, Mrs. Diaforus, smartly underplayed by Lesley Malin. As the manipulative, sex-crazed young wife of Argan, Rebecca Ellis hysterically plays through several scenarios of how she, Beline, might react to the news of her husband's "death". And keeping this part commedia del'arte, part farce, part melodrama frenzy of plot twists and wry social commentary together is the completely winning performance of Tami Moon as maid and confidante Toinette, and who at one point dons the garb of a male physician and a side-splitting sequence that has her running breathlessly around the set playing both parts at once. Every single actor in the smaller supporting roles makes a contribution and great impression and is to be commended. In the small, but pivotal role of Angelique's younger sister, Louison, Ashly Ruth Fishell is an absolute scream (literally and figuratively) as daddy's little girl who rats out her sister, thus setting the whole "who will Angelique marry?" plot into a rollercoaster ride toward its predictable, but very welcomed conclusion.

In terms of production values, the design team is equally on top of things. Technical director and set designer Chuck Leonard provides a simple, yet elegant set including a palace of Versailles-like mirror in the back and a hand painted floor. The simple, very effective lighting (designed by Dan O'Brien, with consulting by Dave Eske) highlights both the set and cleverly helps to focus the action from the dream-sequence interludes, as well as a variety of witty character entrances. The dazzling, eye-popping, budget-busting costumes designed by Magenta Brooks do triple duty here – setting a time period, revealing character, and matching any of the written comedy. Particularly humorous and beautiful are the Captain Hook-ish, French Dandy-ish costumes worn by the characters Mr. Bonnefoi and Cleante which may forever be seared into my memory. They are priceless!

At under an hour, the first act is not only short in length, but its pacing is razor sharp and tightly timed. However, at nearly an hour and a half, act two could stand a little trimming, particularly during a prolonged backgammon game which, though very well acted by Mr. Thomas and Frank Mancino as Argan's brother, brings the show to a grinding halt. (If they were actually playing what they rolled, Mancino was killing Thomas, but I never should have noticed the game…) It is extremely repetitive, and uncharacteristic of the rest of the translation, which otherwise never seems self-indulgent or irrelevant. The surrounding scenes tell us everything that we need to know. Still, that is a relatively small qualm about an otherwise marvelous production.

The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company will present a special family performance of The Imaginary Invalid on Sunday, February 12^th at 2PM.

(Photo of Christopher Niebling, Valerie Fenton and Nathan Thomas by Kitty Charlton.)

Moliere's THE IMAGINARY INVALID presented by the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company at the Howard County Center for the Arts, 8510 High Ridge Road, Ellicott City, Maryland 21043.  Performances through February 19, 2006, Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM, Sundays at 2PM.  Tickets available online: www.chesapeakeshakespeare.com or by phone: 866-811-4111

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