The Imaginary Invalid

Like an idiot, I didn't get pictures.

Stony Point High School is doing a 40 minute version of Moliere's "The Imaginary Invalid" for UIL one-act play competition this year. If you can get over to the Stony Point Cafetorium (God, I hate that word!) by 6:30 PM tomorrow or Saturday, I highly recommend the show.

Al Martinez, who has done several shows at Sam Bass has the lead (Argan) in this, and he really rocks the role. He has a great sense of timing, and a penchant for broad comedy greater than I had suspected. Ashley Zeh, another Sam Bass favourite, is playing Beline, his wife. To the max. Not the first time these two have played husband and wife. I cast them as the neighbours in "All My Sons," several years ago. It was interesting this evening, to see how much they have both grown and changed as actors, and how much more depth they have now than they did then.

The entire cast really has a feel for the show, and that lets me know that their directors, Sunshine Morgan and Erin Schreck, have worked very hard with them. Moliere is not everyone's cup of tea. I've seen it overdone and underdone, and neither is a pretty sight. It has to dance along, and timing is everything. Tomorrow night and Saturday, you'll get a chance to see that.

Kaylene Ball, as Toinette, is perky and worldly. She is the glue that holds this household precariously together. Argan is beset by his illnesses, both chronic and acute, and his wife and daughters march to their own individual drummers. Toinette is the only one who knows what the rest are doing.

Alaina Burleson plays Angelica. She's Argan's older daughter, madly in love with a young man with whom she has exchanged no more than a glance. While she and Cleante (Nathan Walker), her young man, are plotting ways to get married, Argan has his own agenda--marry Angelica off to a doctor, so he can be treated for free for the rest of his (no doubt foreshortened) life.

I guess I'd better not spill any more beans...

Suffice it to say that the entire cast, Justin Adams, Chase Brewer, Alex Klunk, Leah Korenstein, Shane Bovey, Roshaun Valentine and Austin Hooper, as well as those already mentioned, make this a wonderful show, and well worth the $5 entry fee.