THE IMAGINARY INVALID
Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival
Directed by Jim Helsinger

And so a new chapter begins.

While I had started work on Argan as part of my MFA recital in 1976, I had never had an opportunity to do a full production. And this one was truly serendipitous. I had a call to come audition in NYC for Argan from Dennis Razze an old grad school acquaintance who happened to be the head of the theatre program at DeSales University and the Associate Artistic Director of PSF. I was already booked through the end of November at Actors' Summit and Great Lakes, but Keith Stevens one of my favorite students (and a life member of the Actors Studio) was about to open an off-Broadway production in which he was starring and which he had directed. If I came to the city to audition (and write off the trip), I could feed my passion for Moliere and see Keith's venture. Win/win/win. And if I got the part, bonus!

The audition went pretty well and even led to an offer to throw my hat into the ring for a faculty position at DeSales which opened up about the same time. After thirty-plus years in Cleveland, the thought of moving hadn't really been in the front of my mind, but when I broached the subject to my lovely bride, she said with characteristic spunk, "Go for it." And so, long story short, I got both jobs, took lodgings at the Inn of the Falcon (meeting the wonderful Neumeiers in the process) to test the waters and make sure DeSales was what it seemed to be, which is to say, not part of the real world, but an idealized corner of some theatrical wonderland. "We don't have a football team; we have a theater." How could I not work for hese people? But I digress.

Jim Helsinger, Artistic Director of the Orlando Shakespeare Festival, is something of a lunatic and something of a genius, which makes him the ideal director for this piece. His conceit was considerably larger than life and I found myself at the head of a terrific cast that included some of the East coast's finest comedians: Carl Wallnau, Christopher Patrick Mullen a distinguished DeSales Alum; Anne Lewis (left), DSU faculty and AEA powerhouse; and wonderful crazies also from DeSales Tom Del Pizzo, Will Ditterline, Colleen Gallagher and Kim Carson, ech of whom has gone into a growing career. Add to these Helsinger protege Michael Gill (a zany in his own right) and the lovely and talented Toinette. A wonderfl way to start.

Jim gave us our heads, added his own particular brand of bizarre and silly, and quickly shaped Miles Malleson's adaptation of Moliere's classic into a dizzying romp. We gelled rather quickly, took things far over anybody's preconceived notion of the top and audiences grew and responded extremely well. 'twas great fun. Had we had more than the three week rehearsal that economics demands these days, we might have explored some of the darker, more satirical aspects of Moliere's original. But there was no real need; we let the script do that work and we had fun pulling laughs from anything we could find.

At some point, I realized that this was my first time in front of this particular audience which would include my academic colleagues and bosses. Argan is afflicted with, among his many imaginary ailments, nearly terminal gas and while farts have been with mankind from the beginning and are found in theatrical endeavors from the Oxyrhynchus mime to Blazing Saddles, I couldn't help thinking that one only has one opportunity to make a first impression. And mine would be a lulu. But, then, I chose this profession and, happily all has worked out. So far.

A sampling of the reviews

: Philadelphia Inquirer "One remedy for medical bills: Have daughter wed a doctor" by Desmond Ryan
In a painfully familiar tableau, a sickly old man sits at his table tallying his mounting medical bills. Moliere created this scene more than three centuries ago to open his mordant comedy The Imaginary Invalid, but it is a predicament played out in countless homes today as we struggle with crushing health care costs. In the case of the hypochondriac Monsieur Argan, the playwright proposed an ingenious if heartless solution. Can't pay your doctor bills? Then why not order your beautiful daughter to marry into a family of physicians and get your care for nothing for the rest of your life? That droll proposition launches The Imaginary Invalid, which is the first offering of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. But what follows is an Imaginary Invalid that is short on imagination and content to settle for low farce that limps along. The modest aspirations of the production, which is directed by Jim Helsinger, are evident at the outset, when Argan accounts for what his treatments and medicines cost. Wayne S. Turney gives a competent reading of a whining and tyrannical old coot without suggesting the darker reaches of the character… (See Goethe's questions above)
Reading Eagle "A modern take on 'The Imaginary Invalid" by Susan L. Pena
The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival has chosen to mount a handsome production of Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid, newly adapted by Miles Malleson…Director Jim Helsinger-following in the footsteps of Malleson, who has played fast and loose with Moliere's script in this translation-uses conventions of modern comedy to take the play to the outer limits of broad farce: Far from being a reconstruction of 17th Century French comedy, it is Moliere for an American audience. But the outrageous spirit of the original somehow survives. … In the lead role of Monsieur Argan, the hypochondriac whose solution to the high cost of medical care is to have his daughter marry a doctor, Wayne S. Turney is perfect-by turns pathetic and irascible.
The Press The farce is with PSF; 14th season off to a rousing start by Paul Willistein
…Emmy-winning Wayne S. Turney, joining the DeSales' theatre department this fall, proves a sweet curmudgeon in the Monsieur Argan title role.
The Morning Call Comic timing, great ensemble cast is good medicine for this 'Invalid" by Diana Morse
If you could bring a cartoon to life, it would look and sound like PSF's production of Moliere's "Imaginary Invalid." …Emmy-award winning actor Wayne S. Turney presents Argan as a frustrating, but loveable old coot, who complains constantly about his failing health, delights in awful medical treatments, then upsets himself again by reviewing the costs of his medicines…