‘The Imaginary Invalid’ review: Unfunny Molière revival on Broadway makes you scream ‘Sacré bleu!’

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Perhaps the audience in the Todd Haimes Theatre imagined that they had laryngitis. Because the laughs certainly did not flow freely at the recent performance of Molière’s “The Imaginary Invalid” I sat through.

For the first hour or so of the French classique, there were barely even any polite, upper-middle-class chuckles of acknowledgement. You know the noise. Voluntary exhalations of air that say, “Yes, I am aware that was a joke.”

The silence was awkward. The Haimes is a big, chilly room. And in director Brandon J. Dirden’s misfired Roundabout Theatre Company revival, which opened Thursday night, the actors work very, very hard to make up for it. So hard, it’s as if there is a maternity ward nurse offstage yelling, “Push! Push!”

And push, they do.  

Coming as a disappointing surprise, one of the most underwhelming performers of the lot is Bill Irwin as Argan, the titular hypochondriac who spends all his cash on pricey procedures and appointments that quack doctors have convinced him he urgently needs.

Irwin has a strong connection to the play. He adapted the version used in this revival with great care and affection — and, yeah, a machete. He chopped it down to 90 minutes (not as short as you think!), but kept l’action squarely in 17th century France rather than schlepping the story to the Villages in Florida, or some other contemporary retiree enclave. Irwin is a celebrated expert in clowning and presumably knows this text in the marrow of his bones.

Well, you wouldn’t realize that from his scattered Argan, who whines and reclines for most of the play in a chair at the center of the stage. The actor rambles and swallows his words as often as he scarfs down pills and his comedic timing is way off. 

The first few minutes, after a somewhat haphazard company dance introduction to up-tempo lute music, is Argan reading off his medical bills. He worships “the regimen!” and enthusiastically tallies his 18 enemas. The word enema alone should be funny, but gets crickets.

That Irwin Bolt leaves no room for laughter establishes the audience’s habitual voicelessness for the next 60 minutes. He’s not timid — he’s actually doing too much — but is quiet and quick.

The man with a troubled bladder frequently dashes to the bathroom as an overly artificial toilet noise plays. That gets cicadas.

Everybody else, yikes, is much louder. “Please pipe down!” louder. All of these enormous characters want something from the foolish old dude, and are working like the dickens to snatch it away. There’s potential for hilarity in that as written, but almost never as so strenuously acted here. 

Performed on Beowulf Boritt’s pre-crayon coloring-book set, “Invalid” is filled with no-brainer comedy setups. Argan’s daughter Angelique (Ava Lalezarzadeh) dreams of marrying a hottie she’s just met named Cleante (Daniel Croix Henderson) instead of the stuffy doctor’s son Argan has promised her to in order to get pro bono medical treatment. 

His serpentine second wife Beline (Crystal A. Dickinson) connives to take all his money. And the pompous Dr. Diafoirus (Brooks Ashmanskas) needs to keep sending him bills for all these extraneous enemas.

In what turns into an unpalatable silly voice contest, most of the actors are unbearably cheesy and thus grate.

Naturally, Ashmanskas bulldozes in and gives his usual “here I am!” turn that he does in everything. 

Lalezarzadeh and Henderson are extremely irritating during a scene in which Cleante pretends to be Angelique’s music teacher as they secretly communicate through an improvised opera. That entire klutzy sequence is terribly directed by Dirden. The singing is dicey and the bit fast deflates. Disguises and trickery should delight audiences, not have them hiking their shoulders up to their ears. 

Good for Hiram Delgado for earning some genuine giggles as Thomas, Diafoirus’ son who’s been promised to Angelique. He gives the socially inept role an amusing “Revenge of the Nerds” spin.

But the best actor in the play is the person who does the least. That’s Rachel Bloom as Toinette, Argan’s overworked and mistreated maid. Simple and with crystalline diction, the “My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” star is witty and cutting as she buzzes around annoyed by all the nonsense going on in this house of loons.

Can’t blame her.