The imaginary patient

One of the best-known masterpieces of the genius of Molière is staged at the Quirino Theater, with Emilio Solfrizzi in the role of the protagonist Argante, the imaginary sick man and directed by Guglielmo Ferro.

The comedy, performed for the first time at the Palais-Royal in 1673 by the Troupe du Roy, with the music of the Baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier, was interspersed with musical interludes and ballets, inserted by the author in order to please the king Louis XIV, while leaving the structure of the work intact.

Written in the last year of Molière's life, the play is steeped in realism and tells the vicissitudes of Argante, a wealthy hypochondriac head of the family, who surrounds himself with inept doctors, Diafoirus and Purgon, and clever pharmacists, Fleurant, happy to feed his anxieties for personal gain. Argante is so much a prisoner of his fear that he wants to marry his daughter Angelica with the son of Diafoirus, even though she is in love with the young Cleante. The protagonist is a victim of himself and in the hands of those around him, but thanks to the intervention of the waitress Antonietta and his brother Beraldo he finally manages to plot a deception capable of making him open his eyes to reality and the people around him. Argante is a character who is more afraid of living than dying, and his taking refuge in illness is nothing more than an escape from the problems of life, from the trials of existence.

In the comedy, the author harshly criticizes the society of his time, in particular making fun of the naive ignorance of those who rely on a medicine that is not yet scientific and making a sharp satire against the selfishness, hypocrisy and avarice of doctors of his time. In fact, through the protagonist, Molière takes advantage of the comic opportunities offered by the plot to unexpectedly introduce a bitter denunciation of the society of his time.

Photo credits: courtesy of Quirino Theater official site