Healthy Adaptation of Moliere’s ‘Invalid’

The funky new staging of Moliere’s “The Imaginary Invalid,” at Stage of Grace Theatre in Hollywood, should cure even an acute case of play-goer’s blues.

The title character in this broad domestic comedy is the wealthy patriarch Monsieur Argan (a dread-locked, Rastafarian-like Jeffrey Anderson-Gunter), who though healthy fears he is suffering from a host of terrible diseases. Seeking lifetime medical care, he has promised his headstrong daughter (a vivacious Michole White) to an oafish young doctor (Matthew DeHaven). But Argan’s second wife (Sonia Jackson) is meanwhile plotting to steal the hypochondriac’s fortune and send the girl to a convent.

Director Matt Almos, working from an adaptation by Miles Malleson, has revived this classic with a welcome, albeit sometimes excessive, dose of campy exuberance. One favorite scene with a John Waters-esque twist finds Argan’s apothecary (DeHaven, as a zaftig nurse in drag) making wicked visual jokes with a large syringe. Almos and a talented multiethnic ensemble even manage a boffo finale, scored to Dave Ossmann’s terrific music. Marco De Leon earns kudos for his gold and sunburst set, which resembles nothing so much as a fading bordello.

All in all, a healthy approach to Moliere.

* “The Imaginary Invalid,” Stage of Grace Theatre, 1611 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Aug. 20. $12.50. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.