If laughter is the best medicine, The Imaginary Invalid, which just opened on Broadway at the Todd Haimes Theatre, should cure almost anything that ails you.
Perhaps the powers-that-be at the Roundabout Theatre, when programming the fall season, looked at the election calendar and thought, “Theatergoers are going to be in desperate need of something light.” Or maybe they simply couldn’t resist the chance to work with the modern-day vaudevillian Bill Irwin. Either way, Invalid—adapted by and starring Irwin, directed by Brandon J. Dirden—is an absolute delight.
It’s also curiously timely: Who knew that 353 years after the play’s premiere, the general public would still have a fundamental mistrust of the health care system? (Doctors were one of Molière’s favorite targets.) Here, Irwin plays Argan, the eponymous hypochondriac, who’s suffering from any number of unnamed illnesses; no one knows what they are, but his pricey physicians are bleeding him dry. Not only figuratively—“I mean, can one afford to be sick?” Argan asks the audience—but also literally: Bleedings are part of his treatment. Along with a regimen of “medicinals,” vomiting, and enemas.
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★★☆ review here.]
All that, ahem, treatment costs a pretty penny—which is why Argan wants his daughter, the beautiful and bubbly Angelique (Ava Lalezarzadeh, making a meal of the stock ingenue role) to marry Thomas (Hiram Delgado, terrifically creepy), the simpering son of Doctor Diafoirus (Brooks Ashmanskas, ridiculously, and appropriately, over the top), brother-in-law to Argan’s beloved primary care physician, Doctor Purgon (Ashmanskas again, even more over the top). “I want a son-in-law and relatives who are doctors, so I have good help against my illness,” he reasons. Isn’t free family medical care enough reason to get married?
Alas, Angelique loves the dashing Cleante (Daniel Croix Henderson), whom she met six days ago. Meanwhile, Argan’s second wife, Beline (Crystal A. Dickinson, milking every moment), is waiting (im)patiently for him to die while quietly accumulating all the cash she can.
Only two people aren’t afraid to challenge Argan’s supposed sickness: Toinette, his sassy servant (Rachel Bloom of My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, in an amazing Madame Thenardier–style wig by Nikiya Mathis)—not surprising, because Molière’s servants are always the smartest ones in the room. And his brother, Beralde (Dylan Baker, clearly enjoying himself), who believes in the healing powers of nature and art. He suggests a night at the theater, to see a Molière play. Nonsense, declares Argan. “The stage should…stop wasting our time… And Molière, if he gets sick, should suffer his illness without any doctors offering to help him.” A tragic irony: The playwright famously starred as Argan in the premiere of La malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid); wracked with tuberculosis, he collapsed at the end of the fourth performance and died that night. If only there had been a doctor in the house!
The most surprising thing about this production: Irwin isn’t playing the clown. (He does, however, manage to work in a nod to commedia dell’arte and a brief soft shoe.) His Argan is the butt of all the jokes, but he’s not part of the controlled chaos swirling around him. Speaking of chaos—and I mean that in the best sense—someone let costume designer Karen Perry run wild and the results are amazing: a crazy-quilt collection of corsets, flouncy overskirts, beribboned breeches, brocade waistcoats, and all kinds of multicolored baroque fabulousness. Smartly, Beowulf Boritt kept the set simple and let the clothing shine. Is it just us, or do the walls look like a Laudrée macaron gift box?
The Imaginary Invalid opened Oct. 22, 2026, at the Todd Haimes Theatre and runs through Nov. 22. Tickets and information: roundabouttheatre.org
