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The Imaginary Invalid [7]
By Timothy Mooney
Female | Adults 30-40's, Young Adults 20's
About the play: From The Big Book of Molière Monologues by actor/author Timothy Mooney. A collection of over 160 of Molière's funniest monologues in new rhymed iambic pentameter versions. Molière’s career and his life came to an end with the production of The Imaginary Invalid. With this play Molière continues to spin some of his greatest themes in a refreshing and hilarious way. The father, Argan, is looking to marry his daughter, Angelique off to a mate who will serve his needs more than hers. We discover him, as the curtain rises, tallying up his many monthly medical expenses, including seemingly endless bleedings and enemas. Argan’s addiction to medicine has led him to seek a doctor/son-in-law as a ploy to get free medical advice. The doctor he has in mind (the nephew of his own doctor) turns out to be a backwards idiot with no social skills. Much of this play might have been unremarkable had Molière not died four performances into the run of the play. He suffered a convulsive attack during the finale, somehow he managing to finish off the play, but dying several hours later, in his own home, some hundred yards away from the theatre. It so happens that no doctor, nor any priest, attended Molière in his final hours, fulfilling the on-stage prediction almost precisely.
Time: 1600s.
The scene: Toinette the ingenious maid, runs clever circles around Argan, impersonating a doctor with the slightest of disguises, which she changes instantaneously backstage, returning as herself. Here (as the “doctor”), she quickly fills the vacuum of medical attention created by Purgon’s resignation.
.. .
Toinette: I hope you don’t mind I come to be gazing At such a famous invalid. Indeed,
Your reputation sir, does well precede,
And will, I hope, excuse my ill intrusion.
I see that there is some confusion
Within the way you look at me, good sir. Now, tell me, how old would you say I were? Say, twenty-six or seven, at the most...? (Argan hazards a guess.)
Ha, ha! I’m ninety! Ninety! If I boast,
You must forgive me, but the rigorous
Way of my art’s what keeps me vigorous.
A handsome young old man for such an age?
I travel, sir. From town to town, I gauge
The worthiest of subjects for my art;
I seek the finest victims to take part
In learning all the secrets of our science.
I scorn those practices which build reliance
On petty illnesses, those minor trifles,
With simple symptoms that the doctor stifles, Like coughs and fevers, vapors, headaches, flu;
I long for traits exotic! Massive! New!
Like fevers endless in their long duration! Delerium, or plagues with inflammation!
I want a little dropsy which has hung
On with an inflammation of the lung!
If only I could treat a little pleurisy,
Now that’s disease I’d much prefer to see!
Now that, dear sir’s, the zone in which I thrive, With patients who are barely left alive!
I only wish you had each malady,
With fading grip upon reality,
And had, by all the doctors, been deserted
And were left desp’rate, agonized, perverted,
To show you how my treatments may preserve us, And of my keen desire to do you service!
This monologue is licensed to kim guzowski for audition, competition, or classroom use only.
All sharing or reproductions, digital or otherwise, are strictly prohibited. Published by Timothy Mooney.