Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino brings the hysterical comedy The Hypochondriac to the Festival stage, with previews beginning today. Featuring Stephen Ouimette and Brigit Wilson, the comic duo leading last season’s hit comedy The Alchemist, the production officially opens on Thursday, August 18.
Adapted by British playwright Richard Bean from Molière’s Le Malade Imaginaire, The Hypochondriac is a fresh take on a satirical comedy about an egotist who is obsessed with his supposed maladies and falls prey to every quack doctor in Paris.
Mr. Ouimette plays Argan, the fearful penny-pinching hypochondriac, with Ms Wilson as his sensible maid-servant, Toinette. Ben Carlson plays Beralde, Argan’s brother, and Trish Lindström plays Beline, Argan’s wife.
The play, a zany farce full of hilarious situations and ribald gags, speaks directly to this season’s theme After the Victory.
“Argan lets himself be defeated by his own obsessive egotism,” says Mr. Cimolino. “Those around him are trying to help him turn that defeat into victory; to overcome the obsessions that distort his life and jeopardize the happiness of others. There’s a meaningful journey to the play – it just happens to be one that’s riotously funny.”
Ironically, the play is often associated with Molière’s own demise. On the night of February 17, 1673, while playing the title role, he was seized with a tubercular coughing fit and died later that night.
“No play of Molière’s seems more personal than The Hypochondriac. Molière himself was accused of being a hypochondriac in a scathing satire of the time; clearly in his own script he was able to recognize the power of the imagination to delude oneself. But the painful irony is that he was, in fact, sick. And he must have known it. Courageously, he brought his life to his plays and to the theatre. In that same spirit, we bring Molière’s play to Molière’s theatre on that black Friday night in 1673.”
The creative team includes Designer Teresa Przybylski, Lighting Designer Michael Walton, Composer Berthold Carrière, Sound Designer Thomas Ryder Payne, Choreographer Stephen Cota, Commedia dell’Arte Coach Perry Schneiderman and Juggling Coach Doug DeForrest. Additional lyrics by David Prosser.
The Hypochondriac is dedicated to the memory of designer Desmond Heeley.
Production support is generously provided by Sylvia D. Chrominska, by Dr. Dennis & Dorothea Hacker, by Dr. Desta Leavine, by Drs. M.L. Myers & the late W.P. Hayman and by Dr. Robert & Roberta Sokol.
Support for the 2016 season of the Festival Theatre is generously provided by Claire & Daniel Bernstein.
The Hypochondriac Forum Highlights
The Forum is a series of activities and events, featuring exclusive showcases, guest speakers, special meals, dynamic dialogues and family fun, that offer theatregoers a unique opportunity to delve deeper into the ideas and issues raised by the 2016 playbill and its theme of After the Victory.
Themes related to The Hypochondriac will be explored through several Forum events, including:
• Ideas at Stratford: The Challenge of Words
Saturday, August 20, 10:30 a.m. to noon
Studio Theatre
Award-winning novelist, poet and short-story writer Jane Urquhart headlines a discussion with author Monia Mazigh, wife of Maher Arar, and writer and visual artist Shani Mootoo on literature and language: How do words shape who we are, and the societies we create? How do the ideas they contain shape our future? Moderated by Ideas host Paul Kennedy.
• Calling Out the Quacks
Wednesday, September 14, 10:45 a.m. to noon
Studio Theatre
Dr. Brian Goldman, of CBC’s White Coat, Black Art, leads an examination with Dr. David Goldbloom of the sometimes slippery world of unlicensed health care.
Sustaining support for the Forum is generously provided by Kelly & Michael Meighen and the T.R. Meighen Family Foundation.
The 2016 season runs until November 5. It features Macbeth, As You Like It, A Chorus Line, Shakespeare in Love, A Little Night Music, All My Sons, Breath of Kings, John Gabriel Borkman, The Hypochondriac, The Aeneid, Bunny and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit stratfordfestival.ca or call 1.800.567.1600.
Photo: Stephen Ouimette. ©2015 Don Dixon.
2016-08-02
Stratford: Previews for Molière's comedy "The Hypochondriac" begin today