Is there a doctor in the house?
In a culture dominated by algorithmic health optimization, premium supplements, and medical anxiety around exorbitant healthcare costs, Bill Irwin’s brisk 90-minute adaptation of Molière’s final masterpiece, The Imaginary Invalid, feels urgently tailored to our modern obsession with “wellness.” (Clearly the ailment is spreading: Red Bull Theater’s Off-Broadway production checked in just last year.)
Molière famously wrote the part for himself while he had tuberculosis and died after his fourth performance. At 76, Irwin is as lithe and vibrant as ever as Argan. Confounded by his own mortality, Argan surrenders his wealth to unscrupulous doctors (Brooks Ashmanskas brilliantly hams it up as both doctors Diafoirus and Purgon) who commodify his fear. In this way, Irwin’s Argan is no longer just a 17th-century hypochondriac: He is the ultimate modern consumer caught in a predatory self-care trap.
Gold diggers, quacks & a period-perfect household
When he’s not rushing to the offstage toilet for his daily enemas, Irwin is confined to a single chair (a tricked-out leather recliner replete with its own sight gags), showcasing a masterclass in clowning and physical comedy. In a spectacular Broadway debut, Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) matches him as the sharp-witted maid Toinette, grounding this existential absurdity with her own bawdy glee.
Beowulf Boritt’s stunning forced-perspective set and Karen Perry’s gorgeous, period-perfect costumes complement the ensemble’s energetic slapstick, including Dylan Baker as Argan’s brother Beralde and Crystal A. Dickinson as gold-digging second wife Beline.
While the antics can get shrill and devolve into shrieking (Ava Lalezarzadeh gets especially screechy as daughter Angelique), Brandon J. Dirden’s crisp direction keeps this revival from becoming mere period satire. Irwin’s adaptation includes sly references to primary care physicians and other anachronisms for comic effect.
In today’s landscape, where health quackery has been amplified and monetized alongside extreme magical overthinking, this 350-year-old text offers a blistering, laugh-out-loud critique of what happens when the fear of dying hollows out the joy of living.
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Is ‘The Imaginary Invalid’ worth seeing?
Bill Irwin and Rachel Bloom keep the slapstick fizzing in a Molière revival that, for all its occasional shrillness, lands a pointed diagnosis of a culture so busy optimizing its health that it forgets to enjoy being alive.
- Todd Haimes Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street, New York City
- Notable performers: Bill Irwin, Rachel Bloom, Dylan Baker
- Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission
- Performances through November 22, 2026
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