Images by Andy Berkovsky for The Imaginary Invalid, July 21 - August 4

Images provided by Andy Berkovsky, Artistic Director of the City Theatre for

The Imaginary Invalid

by Molière

directed by Karen Sneed

July 21 - August 14

Thursday – Saturday 8:00 p.m. Sunday 5:30 p.m.
The City Theatre. 3823 Airport Blvd, behind the Shell station (click for map)
Tickets $15 - $20. Guaranteed Front/2nd Row Reserved $25.
Students $12. Thursday all seats $10. Group discounts are available.
Reservations 512-524-2870 or info@citytheatreaustin.org

Directed by Karen Sneed and featuring Richard Craig,Suzanne Balling, Alexandra Russo, Mick D’Arcy, Laura Cannon, Scot Friedman, Kirk Kelso, Cason Longley, Mario Silva, Kate Clark, Robert Frazier, Brian Brown, Ariel Atlas, Danielle Ruth, Elena Weinberg and Jessica Smith.

Click to view additional images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . .

The Imaginary Invalid by Molière, City Theatre, July 21 - August 14

The 85-seat house at the City Theatre was agreeably full on the opening Friday of Karen Sneed's staging of Molière's The Imaginary Invalid. A full house of attentive spectators is always a boost to the cast. Amusement is amplified and reactions build. The natural curiosity of the audience becomes rapport with actors and characters. Comedy, by provoking shared laughter, binds the members of each evening's audience indefinably, in a fashion that differs from night to nigh

That positive crowd effect may have been linked to the fact that 16 actors inhabit this farce, portraying 31 characters. The City Theatre deserves to enjoy a setting similar to that initial "family and friends" effect for the upcoming three weekends of its run.

Effective stage comedies snare us with quirks and jokes, then elaborate and build the fun with absurdities and unexpected turns of plot. That's Molière's method here. Grumpy, stingy hypochondriac Argan bemoans his miseries and the pile of bills from physicians and pharmacists for hair-raising and trouser-dropping treatments, directed mostly via the opening of his lower colon. (During our years abroad we discovered to our discomfort that contemporary French medicine retains an affection for just that therapeutic channel.)

Argan initially rails out loud to himself and at his irreverent serving girl Toinette. We then see him exercise his arbitrary petty tyrannies over his marriageble daughter Angélique, at the same time that he's a witless dupe of his gold-digging young wife and a procession of quacks. Just about everyone onstage is intriguing against everyone else, and we the audience have the cheerful feelling that we're at least two steps ahead of each of them.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Auditions for Molière's The Imaginary Invalid, City Theatre, May 2 - 3

Found at AustinActors.net:

The City Theatre is casting Molière's Outrageous Comedy

The Imaginary Invalid

When: May 2 - 3
The City Theatre 3823 Airport Blvd. Suite D Austin, TX 78722
Monday and Tuesday, 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. Ten minute appointment slots.
Callbacks Wednesday, May 4. Show dates July 21 – August 14.
Needed: Bring headshot and resume. Readings from the show will be performed. Have a song prepared if trying for a singing role.

The newest and most hilarious modern adaptation of Molière's famous play with music, music, and lots of music including vaudeville shticks, romantic cowboy and blues ballads and a lot of bump and grind. It's wild ride!

ROLES FOR EVERYONE! Legit singers, non-singing comedic actors, sexy guys, showgirls, musicians, no fear, energetic chorus folk willing to commit to a crazy ensemble and, of course, Hillary Clinton. Directed by Karen Sneed for the City Theatre summer season. Call or email for an audition time. Info at www.citytheatreaustin.org.

Contact: The City Theatre info@citytheatreaustin.org 512-524-2870
Website: www.citytheatreaustin.org

15 Seconds of Fame

The Washington DC Shakespeare Company has its own blog, hosted (as is Austin Live Theatre) by blogspot.com. I was surprised and pleased to find Austin Live Theatre the first of several blogs quoted there on The Imaginary Invalid, back on July 3. Returning the compliment:

Thursday, July 03, 2008
What People Are Saying...

The Imaginary Invalid runs at the Lansburgh Theatre until July 27, 2008.










Photo of Nancy Robinette and Rene Auberjonois by Carol Rosegg.

Read what some bloggers are saying:

Austin Live Theatre says, "Rubber-faced René Auberjonois is a self-mocking delight as Molière playing one of his most famous characters. The actors’ diction is uniformly superb throughout, mime and business are subtle and so manifold that one could attend three nights in a row and not catch all the physical jokes."

"The production is a hoot," says Wheat and Weeds.









Photo of the cast of The Imaginary Invalid by Carol Rosegg.

IdealistDC raves, "There is singing, there is dancing, laughter throughout and bits of dark and raunchy adult humor that makes going to the theatre fun and exciting!"

"Helmed by a wonderfully expressive Rene Auberjonois and a sparkling Nancy Robinette, this is one of the strongest ensembles I’ve seen at STC in a long time," exclaims DC Metblogs.

On the Road - in Washington DC

The Imaginary Invalid by Molière

In their 22-year history in the nation’s capital Michael Kahn and collaborators have created a theatre based on the classics, one that has no equal on this side of the Atlantic. Even the great British contemporary theatres must find these Americans hard to match. In April of 2007 I saw the Royal Shakespeare’s Coriolanus at the Kennedy Center one night, and on the next, the Americans’ Titus Andronicus in the much smaller and more traditional Landsburg Theatre on 5th street. Titus was the better play. And in my memory, their Washington Coriolanus of 2000 was a better production than that of the Royals in 2007. Eve Ziebert’s article on the competing presentations published in the Washington Post adroitly contrasted Shakespeare’s plays while tactfully omitting any direct comparison of the players.

Chicago has the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, out on downtown Navy Pier near the Ferris wheel, but it's a highly marketed, populist affair (the upcoming season includes "Willy Wonka" and their current Comedy of Errors puts Shakespeare's short early comedy into a dubious framework of a film company working during the London blitz -- amusing stuff but with a treacly overlay in the pre-war style of Shepperton Studios).

In Washington, however, Kahn has progressively attracted patronage of the Great and mostly Good, and last year the company opened a huge new theatre at the Harmon Center in downtown, just across from the former MCI center, home to sports events and circuses. They expanded their season from five to eight plays or more running drawn from the classical repertory (which stretches at times into the twentieth century). Each runs for a month or more. Currently you can attend Antony & Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, alternating in the Harmon Center, and from this past week, Molière’s Imaginary Invalid at the Landsburg, just two blocks away.

When we were season ticket holders back from 1997-2000, we always brought along our two children. In 1998 they were 14 and 11 years old – the youngest audience members by several decades. Although our younger one usually couldn’t stay awake past the third act, both were deeply impressed by the theatre. They are Shakespeare lovers today.

The Washington company offers an astonishing deal to subscribers under 30 years of age. Last year they charged only $120 for my daughter’s season ticket to the eight-play season – $15 a show, while full-price mid-week tickets at the box office cost $60 and up.

In addition to entertaining at a high level, the company offers the public a superb education about its plays. Their mail-out brochure for each play offers history, commentary, biographies of principal directors and players, and insights into the production and into the art of the theatre. For all there are Podcasts available on the website, along with videos, generally featuring the director and an academic expert exploring the play and the choices for the production.

Keith Baxter, director of the Imaginary Invalid, re-establishes the “new theatre” that Molière created in 1660s for Louis XIV, France’s “Sun King.” The farce gives a linear narrative – in this case, the intrigue is that of hypochondriac Arpagan to wed his tender daughter to a physician so as to guarantee “in-house” services for bleeding, enemas, and similarly ghastly treatments. This is the text that is regularly presented even today. But Baxter and the company provide as preface, interludes and celebratory coda graceful and amusing ballet, songs, and slapstick drawn directly from the Italian tradition of the commedia dell’arte. The show recreates in their imagination and ours the 4th performance of the piece at the court on February 17, 1674 – including the homages to the Sun King and at the last moment, the unexpected appearance of that regal figure onstage.

Rubber-faced René Auberjonois is a self-mocking delight as Molière playing one of his most famous characters. The actors’ diction is uniformly superb throughout, mime and business are subtle and so manifold that one could attend three nights in a row and not catch all the physical jokes. The broad style was perfectly appropriate – let’s call it Marx brothers done declamatory fashion in brilliant costumes and graced by acrobats.

The younger members of the family reported that a couple of 30-somethings seated in front of them got up and left abruptly during the first half (perhaps unwilling to stretch themselves beyond ‘Seinfeld’ -- maybe they should get their theatre at Chicago's Navy Pier). But the rest of us stayed and enjoyed it a great deal.