New York Critic

The subject of Jupiter (a play about power) is fossil fuels – and their absence. Accordingly, the production uses a solar-cell/battery-powered LED system to power a portion of its lighting. And there’s a digital display on stage telling us how many kwh’s and how much CO2 the production has used; it tallies up the sums as the evening progresses. This is a really very interesting sort of contextualism, and it’s wrapped around a really very clever conceit: someone has removed all fossil fuels from the Earth “in one fell swoop”. Naturally, all activity has ground to a halt, and the planet rots in a post-Apocalyptic waste. The miscreant is now “confined in a pod” near the planet Jupiter. The play is a dialogue between this fellow, Joe, and a nameless woman representing humanity, “the accumulation of all voices.” “I ate too much, didn’t I?” she says. “…and I was so naïve.” Her initial reaction to him is a cry of pain. But the relationship between the two is complex. She calls him

The genesis of Imagining the Imaginary Invalid was a small project based on Moliere’s The Imaginery Invalid . It was intended for the actress Ruth Maleczech, her daughter and a few dancers, and intended for audiences of small handfuls in the actress’ living room. The work was interrupted by Ms. Maleczech’s death. The concept, however, was enhanced, and developed into a major production involving well over a dozen performers. It comes from Mabou Mines and Trick Saddle, presented by La MaMa. Moliere himself played the leading role in his company’s production; he died during the fourth performance. Imagining the Imaginary Invalid has at its center the conceit of a terminally ill performer in the role. Moliere's The Imaginery Invalid is the kernel of the show, but we see very little of it. There are three levels of stage reality in the production. The cast presents us with Moliere’s characters, and they present us with the members of Moliere’s company as they produce his pla