STAGE REVIEW : Poor Translation : Updating Moliere’s ‘The Imaginary Invalid’ turns a classic into a sitcom without many laughs.

In its transition from the 17th Century to contemporary Beverly Hills, “The Imaginary Invalid” has been transmogrified into a kind of vaudeville follies in rhyme.

As with many productions that don’t altogether work, this curiosity at the Group Repertory Theatre in North Hollywood is full of flavorful parts. But if you’re looking for the ineffable sum of those parts, a style that translates into a delicious sendup, it’s not there.

The result is hollow, devoid of any vestige of Moliere’s verve and wit. It’s all Silly Putty, staged like a theatrical collegiate prank or a skit on Sid Caesar’s old “Show of Shows.” The classics don’t make very funny sitcoms.

Artistic director Lonny Chapman’s adaptation, though, does pay some respect to his French Muse. Chapman is faithful to Moliere’s plot and to his characteristic use of verse and musical interludes.

The hypochondriac Argan is now Archy (the cantankerous Joe Barnaba), a retired show business agent wailing about his ailments from a chaise longue on his Beverly Hills patio. He uses a golf club for a cane and bets “Tartuffe” in the fifth at Santa Anita.

All the characters speak in rhymed couplets, as in Archy’s lament, “With my endless contaminations and decays/I’ll be dead in four days,” or when daughter Angelique (Shauna Bloom) pleads that “Women marry for different reasons/Not for mating seasons.” But Chapman’s meter is rarely sustained and his verse feat more prodigious than laudable.

Each scene features lively, original music by Malcolm Atterbury Jr., with lyrics, largely by Chapman, that range from “Used Blood!” (the grossest) to “My Husband Is Dead, Ha-Ha!” (the show’s funniest vocal, delivered with operatic fervor by Irene Chapman as Archy’s greedy wife).

Some performances are dapples of sunlight: cute Lola Teigland’s hip-hoppy daughter, Mareli Mitchell’s saucy servant Toinette and Larry Kelly’s droll, skeptical uncle.

The show’s singular ripe touch, however, is composer Atterbury’s sun-splashed, patio set design--it’s mocking sleek with airy primary colors that materialize as if out of a box of crayons.

Too bad the result of all of this cleverness is indeed a cartoon instead of a bracing Beverly Hills satire. As for Moliere’s diatribe on simpletons in the medical profession, it doesn’t translate at all.

WHERE AND WHEN

What: “The Imaginary Invalid.”

Location: The Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood.

Hours: 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Oct. 3.

Price: $8-$10.

Running Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Call: (818) 769-7529.