CAST:
9 Male, 6 Female, 6 Chorus*, 21 Total
* Characters in the interludes and finale can all be doubled with characters in the main action, bringing the total necessary down to 12.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
ARGAN, an imaginary invalid
BELINE, Argan’s second wife
ANGELIQUE, daughter of Argan, in love with Cleante
LOUISON, young daughter of Argan
BERALDE, Argan’s brother
CLEANTE, in love with Angelique
MONSIEUR DIAFOIRUS, a doctor
THOMAS DIAFOIRUS, his son, suitor to Angelique
MONSIEUR PURGON, Argan’s doctor
MONSIEUR FLEURANT, an apothecary
MONSIEUR BONNEFOY, a notary
TOINETTE, a maidservant
Prelude Character
SHEPARDESS
Interlude Characters
PUNCH
OLD WOMAN
A CHORUS OF ARCHERS (ALSO REFERRED TO AS “DANCERS”)
Finale Characters
PRESIDENT
FIRST DOCTOR
SECOND DOCTOR
THIRD DOCTOR
FOURTH DOCTOR
FIFTH DOCTOR

SCENE:
Single Interior Setting: Argan’s bedroom in his house in Paris.

NOTE: This script is now also available in a shortened, one-hour version.

The Imaginary Invalid (1673) may be considered another of Moliere's great character plays, in which the entire development of the action, like in The Miser, centered around a single trait of character upon which everything turns, in this case, that of the hypochondriac.

As created by Moliere, the hypochondriac is someone who wants to be sick. To tell Argan that he is looking well is considered a rude offense in this household. And just as the Miser confused the concepts of love and money, The Imaginary Invalid confuses religion and medicine. There is a sanctity given to medicine that echoes the mysteries of religion. Also, as in The Miser, the father wants to marry the daughter off to the person who will do him the most good, in this case, a doctor, who will be able to give Argan free medical treatment.

Moliere wrote the finale of The Imaginary Invalid in a kind of faux Latin, and subsequent translators have kept it in Latin, with English references replacing the scattered bits of French. Moliere's audience understood Latin. And we, as a public, knew Latin quite a bit better only forty years ago, when it was spoken in the Catholic mass. And so, the finale of The Imaginary Invalid has, in the past, left any number of people scratching their heads. For my version, I had the Latin translated into English, and then built new poetry out of the English, with Latin thrown in, only for effect. What's come out of this is a finale which seems to stretch the comic boundaries even farther than they've already ventured in this very funny play. In this earlier scene, under the influence of his brother, Argan requests that the apothecary return on another occasion to administer the enema that he has prepared. The doctor hears about this and confronts them.