Mark Linnn-Baker

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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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Fern Hill

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Fern Hill

A bum hip and a broken marriage drive the chatter in Michael Tucker’s disjointed therapy session of a play, Fern Hill. Making its New York premiere at the 59E59 Theaters, following a 2018 run at the New Jersey Rep, the production boasts a cast full of familiar faces, including Tucker’s wife and former L.A. Law co-star, Jill Eikenberry, in the central roll of Sunny, a gloomy woman who must decide if she is capable of tolerating a cheating spouse. Indeed, tolerance is this drama’s leitmotif as Sunny and her hubby are joined by two other couples, at their upstate New York farmhouse, to decide just how much of one another, and of themselves, they can take.

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