Theatre
The Imaginary Invalid
Old Carmelite Priory, Mdina
Staging a Baroque play in the appropriate setting is always a plus point in my book, and Nonsuch Players, an amateur drama group led and directed by Sue Fletcher, chose none other than the entrancing Carmelite priory as the venue for their condensed version of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid earlier this month. Produced in collaboration with the Rotaract Malta La Valette Club, its charitable aim was to donate all proceeds to the Equal Partners Foundation – a worthy cause indeed.
Walking through the wide, vaulted corridors forming a loggia around a beautiful courtyard was pleasant enough; but finding that the performance was to take place in the intimate and beautifully frescoed refectory, panelled in mahogany and bursting with original features, gave one a sense of satisfaction that the feel of the piece, at least, would be authentic. Ms Fletcher’s greatest strength was her script adaptation of Molière’s lengthy play, which was nicely condensed to 90 minutes, as well as her clear vision of the staging in such an intimate environment.
Justin Fenech’s M. Argon is obsessed with his health, which he believes is deteriorating rapidly. Consequently, he resorts to consulting various physicians and apothecaries for the purpose of improving his health but really loves the attention that his moaning and groaning gets him – he revels in his supposed ill health. His trusted servant Toinette, played by Lydia Portelli, is having none of it and regularly calls him out and tells him off for being such an annoying hypochondriac.
His worst choices are his second marriage to the social-climbing, gold-digger Beline, portrayed by Michelle Zerafa, and the promise of his beloved daughter Angelique to a young doctor, Thomas Dia-foirus, played by Matthew Sant. Nadia Mifsud’s Angelique, however, is already in love with Keith Spiteri’s Cléante and will not accept being married off to a poncey, stuck-up nincompoop like Dia-oirus, just so that her father can save money and time by having a doctor in the family.
In the meantime, Beline is trying to ease her way into her husband’s pockets and coffers by securing a legal document via her slippery notary friend, M. de Bonnefoi, also played by Matthew Sant. But when Thomas’s father, M. Diafoirus, played by Alan Fenech, adds to Argon’s anxiety by inventing new complications in his state of health, Toinette decides to take matters into her own hands and save him from his own obsession, while showing him the error of his ways and saving Angelique from an unhappy union, with a little help from his brother Belarde, much to the dismay of Noel Bezzina’s M. Purgon, his old doctor.
Victor Bonanno’s Belarde, together with Lydia Portelli’s Toinette, and Alan Fenech’s Diafoirus senior gave the production some much-needed life in a piece which suffered from a huge lack of pace.
Although the actors did seem to be aware of the nature of the play and their characters’ motivations, their interpretations did not translate strongly in performance. Long, often tiring lulls in pace showed a poor knowledge of dynamics between characters and lost the sharp punch of much of Molière’s fast-paced witticisms. A play which is plot-driven and uses its narrative to expose social commentary and linguistic prowess only manages to do so if the story is delivered skilfully. This version of the play sadly became an exploratory experiment in personal boundaries.
While it is heartening to know that there are many amateur actors out there who are interested in looking at different ways in which to understand how the human psyche functions, and who are willing to put themselves into other people’s shoes, it is import-ant to remember that the process of acting is an ongoing one and that each new production will serve as a learning experience.
The next step for this troupe is to learn to react to one another, and this comes with more familiaris-ation with their identity as a team, hopefully leading to an organic development of dynamics which will make their pace more concrete and less “imaginary”.