Word: argan
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...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...
...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...
...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...
...play becomes dated for a modern audience. "The Imaginary Invalid" nevertheless, is a far cry from the archaic. In the witty lines of the French master, the universal idiosyncrasies of the hypochondriac are ample material for an evening of delightful comedy. The Repertory version employs a single setting--Argan's sick-room--in which the familiar touch of John Holabird '42 appears with good effect...
...Hills deserves credit for his impersonation of the irascible old M. Purgon. He seemed to lose himself completely in his part and brought down the house with his tirade upon Argan...