Jesse Berger

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The Imaginary Invalid

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The Imaginary Invalid

The Imaginary Invalid is of interest to historians not just because it is Molière’s last play and not just because Molière himself performed the lead role of Monsieur Argan. It is also due to the fact that, while Argan is a hypochondriac, Molière suffered from dire, real-life ailments that caused him to collapse on stage during just his fourth performance. He died soon afterward. Such dark irony does not haunt his lighthearted comedy, though, and so it has floated, for more than 350 years, from one fizzy reinterpretation to the next. The latest, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher and produced by Red Bull Theater, is a loosey-goosey affair. The vibe is French farce à la The Marx Brothers. The company is a puff pastry stuffed with ham. And the story is King Lear, but with enema jokes.

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Arden of Faversham

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Arden of Faversham

The anonymously written 1592 play Arden of Faversham is just the sort of thing that Red Bull Theater specializes in: plays of Shakespeare’s contemporaries that have been overshadowed by the Bard. But even the best of Shakespeare needs pruning, and Arden has received a new adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher and Kathryn Walat for artistic director Jesse Berger’s production. The result is a mixed bag: necessary condensation of characters and cutting obscure lines, but also some wholesale rewriting.

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The Alchemist

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The Alchemist

The Red Bull Theater Company was founded in 2003 to present the talented playwrights of Shakespeare’s time who have been overshadowed by the Bard and bring their plays to new audiences. Among its productions have been The Changeling (Thomas Middleton and William Rowley), Women Beware Women (Middleton alone) and ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore (John Ford), as well as the occasional Shakespeare. In the years since, the mission has evolved into “classics” outside the 17th century as well—the company’s The Government Inspector, a Nikolai Gogol play of 1836, was one of its most exhilarating triumphs. Now Jeffrey Hatcher, who adapted the Gogol, has given an assist to Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist.

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