The Imaginary Invalid at Tulane’s Lupin Theater through June 22
Want to go see a doctor or two especially when they’re likely to be a quack? Of course not! Unless, that is, they’re on stage at Tulane’s Lupin Theater for the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival’s (NOSF) production of The Imaginary Invalid. In fact, there’s not even any need for insurance to ensure a grand time!
The Imaginary Invalid was the great French playwright Molière’s final work; he died shortly after its premiere. It may not be among his top-tier efforts such as Tartuffe or The Misanthrope, but it remains, 350 years after its debut, eminently enjoyable, perhaps now more so than ever what with our nation’s health services being led by charlatans passing for scholars.
Ryder Thornton has provided a shimmering translation/adaptation of the script which satirizes 17th-century France’s medical profession as we see the wealthy Argan fall prey to ridiculous, supposedly salubrious treatments. (How many enemas can one have in a day?!) Molière also supplies romance, double-crossing, foppery and a maid-servant much wiser than those she serves, all of which Thornton distills so that it sounds as fresh as though it had been written yesterday.
Thornton wisely doesn’t try to update the story (no cell phones here) or toss in contemporary language and references, but, rather, renders the original, which in some productions can sound stilted, as smoothly as can be imagined thus allowing us to relate easily to these characters from long ago. One has to listen closely to Thornton’s carefully chosen words but, if one does, the reward is rich indeed.
Director Anne-Liese Juge Fox has taken Molière/Thornton’s Invalid and guided her entire cast to not only speak their lines clearly and intelligently, but to find just the right balance between buffoonery and authentic emotion. This is more difficult than it seems–go too far one way, and you have an overlong cartoon; too far the other way and things can become dry and tedious. Fox finds just the right prescription for a deliciously overdone style that nonetheless remains anchored to a recognizable humanity.
Fox not only gives her production the proper pace, keeping the momentum going without ever feeling rushed, but stages it fluidly, deploying her actors around the stage and avoiding, in this rather talky comedy, characters standing or, worse, sitting for long stretches of time as they deliver their dialog. I wish more directors could accomplish this, especially in as unobtrusive a manner as Fox achieves here. And when the farce kicks in, door-slamming fun arrives in just the right dosage.
Leading the cast of 12 as Argan is Doug Spearman who starred in Logo’s Noah’s Arc and has been a NOLA resident for over five years. Spearman beautifully makes Argan’s excesses seem natural and milks every bit of pomposity out of this foolish man without ever overdoing it; by calibrating Argan’s parsimony and misplaced health concerns so precisely, Spearman enables Argan’s eventual change of heart to seem genuine which allows for a truly touching finale.
Doug Spearman and Jessica Podewell in The Imaginary Invalid
Spearman has a most worthy opponent in Jessica Podewell’s Toinette, his down-to-earth housekeeper who tries to instill some reason in him. Toinette may be a bit of a hoyden but Podewell makes her witty and wise and, most importantly, a caring soul who looks out for the best interests of those she’s charged with even when they themselves might think otherwise.
Watching these two pros battle each other is akin to having a front row seat for a finals match at the French Open.
Alexandria Miles, as Argan’s daughter, contributes another perfect performance making Angélique charmingly winsome while radiating such smarts as could get her membership in Le Académie. As her beloved Cléante, it’s good to have swoony Brandon Sutton back in town and on stage again after too long an absence.
Making their NOSF debuts, Alix Paige is lovingly two-faced as Argan’s second wife, while Phillip Andrew Monnett oozes oiliness as Thomas, a dim-witted dandy and would-be suitor to Angélique. Both amp up this comedy’s humor.
Playing the elder members of the ensemble, John Jabaley and Robert A. Mitchell are both excellent, the former who, as Thomas’ father, delivers long verbiage, elegantly, explaining his prodigy’s merits with ease, the latter as Argan’s decent brother who tries to hammer some common sense into his sibling.
Though they each have only one scene, Yvette Bourgeois, as Argan’s overly dramatic younger daughter, and Robinson J. Cyprian, as Argan’s overpowering personal physician who exploits his hypochondria, make the most of it. One only wishes Molière had granted their characters another scene or two.
Ryan Hayes and Philip Yiannopoulos, strumming Brendon Connelly’s original music on his guitar, round out the cast most capably.
If one might diagnose anything wrong with this Invalid, it’s that at 2 hours and 20 minutes, a little less would’ve been more. It’s not the fault of Thornton per se; Molière tends to make his point and then make it again and again. But while Fox & Co.’s Invalid flies by, a little judicious trimming might have made for a even more satisfying divertissement.
Bravo to the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival for going beyond their eponymous scribe to present this delightful soufflé of a show. In fact, filled with wit and glee, it might be the best medicine for whatever ails you!
[For tickets and more information, go to https://neworleansshakespeare.org/products/the-imaginary-invalid]
Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Le Petit Theatre through June 22
“One never knows, do one?”
Thomas “Fats” Waller’s most famous quote might well apply to the production of Ain’t Misbehavin’, the Tony Award-winning revue of his songs, now playing at Le Petit Theatre. For after a prettily sung but otherwise lackluster first act (at intermission, I noted that the production “needs more misbehavin’”), it returned for an Act Two that had all the snap, crackle and pop that had been missing previously.
What happened? I’m not sure, but it seemed to me that while the cast of five sang Waller’s great numbers well enough in Act One, after intermission, they acted them as well, deeply connecting with the lyrics, whether playful or serious, so that the songs turned into much more involving mini-monologs or scenes rather than mere ditties.
I don’t think this was the intent of Director/Choreographer Donald Jones-Bordenave, who also performs, but “One never knows, do one?”
Maybe it was Tiffani Sheriff’s costumes. Throughout the first act, the women were dressed in attractive daytime outfits of ruby red (Danielle Edinburgh Wilson), emerald green (Jarrell Hamilton), and sapphire blue (Kadejah Oné), with the men in similarly natty attire. When they returned from intermission, they sported the same colors but now in bespoke undergarments, a design choice I had never seen for Ain’t Misbehavin’ before. Perhaps this uncorked the misbehavin’, allowing it to infuse such songs as the delightful Lounging at the Waldorf. “One never knows, do one?”
(l.-r.) Donald Jones-Bordenave, Jarrell Hamilton, Kadejah Onē, Rahim Glaspy, and Danielle Edinburgh Wilson in Ain’t Misbehavin’
(Sheriff provides another set of outfits, elegant evening wear that classes up the joint, for the second half of Act Two.)
What I do know is that Rahim Gaspy’s rendition of The Reefer Song, which I’ve sometimes found to be a drag, was the best I’ve ever seem as he layered devil-may-care breeziness with knowing naughtiness. Throughout the show, Gaspy reminded the audience why, in addition to being such a talented, Jazzfest-appearing vocalist, he is one of this town’s most valuable, and too underutilized, theatrical performers.
Likewise, while Oné has been in Le Petit shows before, this is the first role that is fully worthy of her talents which include a marvelous voice that purrs with pitch-perfect personality wrapped around steely intent. I’m not sure if that accurately describes Oné’s terrific vocal instrument but it’s the best I can do; it really has to be heard to be fully appreciated.
Hamilton, who appeared in Ain’t Misbehavin’ at The National WWII Museum’s Stage Door Canteen in 2017, reprises Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now from that presentation her voice as silky and lovely as ever. She also shows off Jones-Bordenave’s period appropriate dance moves with fabulous abandon.
Wilson, justly celebrated for her performances as Mahalia Jackson, joins with Oné for the uproarious Find Out What They Like, which is followed by Gaspy and Jones-Bordenave putting over the equally hilarious Fat and Greasy, before the quintet delivers Black and Blue, one of the most despairing songs ever written (“No joys for me, no company/Even the mouse ran from my house”), simply and compellingly.
Throughout the evening, Max Dovale leads the seven piece band, perched atop Bethany Lee’s speakeasy setting, expertly.
If at intermission I wondered why I had bothered to see this oft-done show, by the time I left Le Petit, I was very happy I did. “One never knows, do one?”
[More info and tickets at https://www.lepetittheatre.com/events/aint-misbehavin-the-fats-waller-musical-show]
In Memoriam
New Orleans’ theater community lost one of its most revered and talented members this week when Harold X. Evans (1945-2025) passed away at the age of 79 due, primarily, to coronary heart disease.
A native New Orleanian, I believe I first saw Evans in the mid-1990sat the Contemporary Arts Center in Fragments, written and directed by Edward Albee. Evans, along with the rest of the cast, was hand-selected by the renowned dramatist to appear in that production. Yes, Evans was that good.
I know I first reviewed him in 2004’s King Hedley II at the Anthony Bean Community Theater (ABCT) when I wrote of his performance “even when [Stool Pigeon] is beaten up and his treasured newspapers are burned, Evans eschews easy sentimentality to provide only the slightest emotional acknowledgment thereby turning what could have been a maudlin or grating performance into a touching one.”
In 2008, writing about ABCT’s Radio Golf, like King Hedley II also penned by the Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright August Wilson, I noted that “Evans infused Elder Joseph Barlow, the keeper of the Hill District’s legacy, with wonderful humanity and rye cynicism.” The following year, in The Piano Lesson, another of Wilson’s plays presented by ABCT, Evans “was by turns raffish and slyly wise.”
Harold X. Evans (l.), with Anthony Bean, at the Ambie Awards at Le Petit Theatre in 2011
While Evans won tremendous acclaim as a Wilsonian actor, appearing in nearly all of the plays in Wilson’s “Pittsburgh Cycle”, he essayed many types of roles, bringing insight, depth and flair to each of them.
He was perhaps most memorable as Ernie K-Doe in Rob Florence’s Burn K-Doe Burn! at the Rock ‘n Bowl Café Theatre. Portraying the legendary R&B singer and self-proclaimed “Emperor of the Universe”, Evans gave “a charismatic performance that approaches Shakespearean, almost Lear-like highs and lows never papering over K-Doe’s shortcomings. Evans maintains K-Doe’s dignity through the drunken passages and convinces us of his majestical certainty in his own supremacy.” I suspect this might have been Evans’ favorite role as he used a photo from the production, with co-star Adella Gautier, as his Facebook profile picture AND cover photo up until the time of his passing.
Evans was nominated for an Ambie Award for each of these performances, winning Best Featured Actor in a Play for The Piano Lesson.
Perhaps my favorite memory of Harold X. Evans (“I added the X because there were just too many guys with that name.”), though, is from a few years ago, pre-pandemic, when I was canvassing for a political campaign in Treme. I knocked on a door and who should open it but Harold. We had a lovely chat; he was, as always, friendly, wise, gracious and down-to-earth, the loveliest of men. And that was no act.
Evans is survived by two daughters, Jamila and Adama Evans. Deepest condolences to them and his entire family. He will be greatly missed. R.I.P.
