After an Infusion, ‘Invalid’ Is Doing Well

ANoise Within’s version of Moliere’s “The Imaginary Invalid” opened a bit too late--it would have been ideal for Halloween.

A satire of hypochondriacs and the doctors who cater to them, dating to 1673, “Imaginary” has been treated imaginatively in recent years. Here it’s a “Rocky Horror”-style spook show, going beyond satire into its own alternative world. Purists may object. The rest of us, as we laugh out loud, may salute A Noise Within for its sense of surprise and fun.

The Glendale company isn’t generally known for adventuring into the perilous realm of radically reinterpreted classics, but here we’re in a theatrical version of a haunted house at an amusement park, aptly suggested by Thomas Buderwitz’s set. The production isn’t genuinely scary, except perhaps to the extremely impressionable, but it’s certainly entertaining.

While this would be the wrong approach to take with most classics, “The Imaginary Invalid” was such a broad spoof even in Moliere’s day that it would be prudish and pedantic to object strenuously to the liberties taken here. Indeed, the Actors’ Gang’s circus-inspired “Invalid” in 1996 took similar liberties, with equal success.

Joseph Graves’ staging opens with one of the hoariest Halloween devices--flashlights pointed upward on faces in an otherwise dark room, accompanied by eerie, electronic clanks and groans from composer Norman L. Berman.

Suddenly, we’re whisked into the brightened bedroom of the title character, Argan (Apollo Dukakis), who is fairly conventionally dressed by 17th century invalid standards. Cue the harpsichord--but wait just a second. Enter the handiwork of costume designer Angela Balogh Calin.

Argan’s scheming second wife (Ann Marie Lee) and acerbic maid (Gail Shapiro) look as if they’re auditioning for a Madonna video, back in her phase with the wide, short skirts and skimpy leather tops. Argan’s older daughter (Mary Dolson) wears a white ballet-style outfit and coarse yellow hair, while her nice young suitor (Louis Lotorto) is dressed in loud, fanciful courtier duds--and black leather pants. Argan’s younger daughter (Dolson again) is in exaggerated juvenile color, like a parody of Miss Goody Two Shoes.

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But Calin and Graves were just getting warmed up with all of the above. They let their imaginations leap way over the top with the doctors and their hangers-on. William Dennis Hunt, father of the doctor whom Argan hopes will wed his daughter (so that Argan will have his own doctor in the family) wields a whip, a pasty face and an eccentric little beard. His lunatic son (Michael Matthys) has fun with his tics and gnawing motions, but he’s relatively sane compared to the specialist (Lotorto again), who looks like a medieval version of a horror film villain.

This is not a show for the squeamish who object to bathroom humor and simulated bloodletting--or to the lascivious thoughts that appear to be on the brain of just about everyone other than Argan.

Dukakis’ Argan is slightly more sympathetic than usual, in contrast to the blatant greed and deception that surround him, but he also appears more foolish than usual for not thinking twice about the outlandish people around him. Lee, as his wife, is a strikingly sharp and angular emblem of lust and venality, but it’s Lotorto who finally elicits the greatest number of cheap but hearty laughs.

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“The Imaginary Invalid,” A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale. Sunday, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.; Nov. 14, 15, 21, 23, 24, 8 p.m.; Nov. 24, 2 p.m.; Dec. 1, 2 p.m and 8 p.m.; Dec. 2, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. $22-$38. (818) 240-0910. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

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Apollo Dukakis: Argan

Ann Marie Lee: Beline

Mary Dolson: Angelique/Louison

William Dennis: Hunt Beralde / Monsieur Diafoirus

Michael Matthys: Notary/Thomas Diafoirus

Louis Lotorto: Cleante, Dr. Purgon

Gail Shapiro: Toinette

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By Moliere. Adapted by Sabin Epstein. Directed by Joseph Graves. Set by Thomas Buderwitz. Costumes by Angela Balogh Calin. Lighting by Peter Gottlieb. Music by Norman L. Berman. Wigs/hair by Joyce Ann Littrell. Stage manager Peter Feldman.