DUT students stage French comedy ballet

Third year drama students from Durban University of Technology (DUT) will be staging Jean Baptiste Molière’s Imaginary Invalid” at the DUT Courtyard Theatre next week.

Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) was Molière's final play, first performed in February 1673 in Paris. It’s a satire of the medical profession and a comedy-ballet, combined with song and dance. The play was written to amuse King Louis XIV.

Molière’s Imaginary Invalid is an outrageously funny masterpiece, said director of DUT’s production, Dr Pamela Tancsik. This performance will be Tancsik’s swansong with the DUT Drama Department as she retires at the end of the year.

“The imaginary invalid of the title is the miserly and severely hypochondriac Argan, who wants his daughter, Angélique, to marry an unattractive, somewhat stupid young doctor so he can save on his medical bills.

“But she’s in love with the handsome and clever Cléante who pretends to be her music teacher. Argan has a scheming wife who wants to banish her stepdaughter Angélique and inherit the family money before Argan can spend it all. It’s ultimately up to Toinette, the family’s faithful servant, to set the household to rights again,” she said

Molière wrote frequently about doctors, and six of his comedies deal significantly with medical practitioners: the stereotype of the doctor who is greedy, pompous and inept—often speaking a jumble of Latin and Greek to prove his intelligence, Dr Tancsik added. The bumbling doctor is a stock character of commedia dell’arte, the Italian form that influenced western comedy.

“Molière wrote The Imaginary Invalid as a comédie-ballet, a form that originally fused music, singing, dance, and comedy. Ironically, while playing Argan in the original production, Jean Baptiste Molière became very ill with suspected tuberculosis. He collapsed during his fourth performance as Argan on February 17, 1673, and died later that day,” said Dr Tancsik.

Dr Tancsik said the students have been given the opportunity to showcase their comedic abilities and perform in period dress – both important theatrical skills to nurture and develop.

Dr Tancsik is using the production’s original music by Marc-Antonie Charpentier and has sourced and created authentic-looking period specific sets, costumes and props. The cast of 14 are all DUT drama students. Tickets cost R50 each and R20 for students. On Monday August 28, Wednesday August 30 and Thursday August 31, the show starts at 7pm and on Tuesday August 29, it starts at 3.30pm.

For details or to book, contact Bawinile at 031 373 2194 or email BawinileM1@dut.ac.za