Canadian Troupe Presents 'Le Malade Imaginaire'

...He used his wit against the doctors, whom he must have regarded as little better than criminals and cheats...

...No matter how sick you are, when you have a mind like Moliere's you cannot but be happy when you are using it...

...The Canadian company now playing at the Phoenix is more talented and versatile than were the Shakespearewrights, but the greatness of the show they have put on for us here in New York springs from something they have in common with the American group: a freedom from the dullness of conventionalized acting, a love of the play they are performing in, and an inner feeling of solidarity with the great dramatist who wrote their parts...

...But the play goes far beyond an attack on doctors, who finally come to symbolize all those whom we turn to when in trouble and who cannot help us...

...Incurably sick, he played the part of the hypochondriac who is not sick at all...

...So, as Le Malade Imaginaire, Moliere may have imagined himself robust...

...This has been called a bitter play...

...I say France appeared for this reason: The great qualities the world owes to the French mind—the grace that is all lightness, the deftness that is equivalent to, yet somehow better than, depth—are continuously present in Moliere's comedy...

...Is that really possible...

...On STAGE By Lionel Abel Canadian Troupe Presents le Malade Imaginaire' France has come to off-Broadway by way of Canada with the production of Moliere's Le Malade Imaginaire by the Canadian company which calls itself Le Theatre du Nouveau Monde...

...Some of the supporting actors were extraordinary...

...Though it aims only at amusing us, it deserves the designation "pure" much more than any of those modern works—in fiction or poetry—which aimed only at being called that...

...This is one of the world's great theatrical works...

...No doubt they were just that...

...Moliere was close to death when he wrote this comedy and died playing the main lead in it...

...For, once he fell to work, his state of mind could not but have become a function of his talent...

...In the final scene, when the imaginary invalid decides to become a doctor himself, and is admitted into the medical profession after a ceremony of pure farce, do we not have a prophecy of what we see nowadays happening all around us...

...While there were no outstanding performances in that Twelfth Night, the production as a whole was a stunning one...

...The great thing about the show, though, is not any individual bit of acting but rather the spirited way in which the whole thing is carried off...

...The delight of the actors in their roles became for me an essential part of the production...

...Moliere himself had seen what they had done to wreck the health of Louis XIV, and certainly their inability to help Moliere in his own moment of need must have contrasted violently in his mind with their self-importance and pretentiousness...

...The patients of the analysts want to—or do —become analysts, or at least the analysts of their friends...

...character I felt as "happiness" must surely not be ascribed to any psychological state we may assume Moliere to have experienced before writing this work...

...Happy...

...About two years ago, the group of actors known as the Shakespeare-wrights gave the best production of Twelfth Night that I have ever seen, and one that could be compared to the present offering by the Canadian players...

...The main part was admirably played...

...I felt it to be a happy one...

...The comedy could easily be transformed into an attack on the psychoanalysts, who, whatever their merits, necessarily interpret our need for something they cannot accomplish as a need for them...

...But what gives the play the...

...There is probably no such thing as a perfect production, but this one leaves nothing to be desired...