The Imaginary Invalid | The Imaginary Invalid (Le Malade imaginaire, 1673)
In the following essay, Bermel provides an overview of The Imaginary Invalid, examining the play’s theatricality, its central character, and themes of medicine and love.
Did Molière’s last work kill him or keep him alive until he had brought it to life? After writing, staging, and playing the demanding lead in the three-act farce-comedy with spectacular trappings, he collapsed and died only four performances into the run of this anything-but-crazy quilt, sewn together, while he was gravely ill, from bits of his earlier comedies and farces, with the addition of swatches of new merriment, irony, and caustic observation.
Of the staple figures the author adapts from his repertoire, as though pulling favorite old garments from a wardrobe, Argan...
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