Die eingebildete Kranke

In the organizer's words:

In the Argan house, everything revolves around the mistress of the house's suffering. She leaves no stone unturned in her obsession to protect herself from illness - indeed, from illness itself. In Molière's most frequently performed comedy, the nationally famous patient becomes entangled in the story of a pathological conceit that grows into a relationship with the world. In the new version by Martin Heckmanns, who follows up his award-winning success "Etwas Besseres als den Tod finden wir überall" with a second work, it also becomes a fast-paced reckoning with the world-weariness of a privileged person. Or is Mrs. Argan really ill after all? For miracle healer Doctor Purgon, this is of secondary importance, as she profits from her client's incessant complaints. In order to always have a doctor in the house, Mrs. Argan now also wants to marry off her own daughter Angélique to Purgon's son Thomas. But Angélique is head over heels in love with Cléante and in her desperation turns to the maid Toinette, who is the only one who sees through the crazy goings-on and cunningly rushes to the aid of love.

Directed by Pia Richter, this clever new adaptation of the French classic becomes a comic grotesque that theatricalizes the major themes of the play, love and death, for our times. In her second work for the Staatstheater (after "The Taming of the Shrew"), the director, known for her feminist perspective on classical material, once again turns gender relations on their head, achieving not only a more gender-equitable distribution of roles, but also a freer view of other current issues: Our self-centered addiction to control, our health mania, our compulsive avoidance of the inevitable, which even denies our own death in neurotic circles around our own well-being and leaves no room for love. In the set design by Julia Nussbaumer (set: "The Taming of the Shrew"), Pia Richter, together with the music by Malik Diao and the costumes by Lise Kruse, creates a strange world of its own, which reveals the seductiveness of human beings through charlatanry as well as posing the question of the right life in the wrong one.

In the opening premiere, the audience can expect social criticism and a search for truth as well as an unbridled love of play, grotesque humor and a few fake doctors, brothers, music teachers and much more ...

The author and Staatstheater Kassel have jointly agreed to perform "The Imaginary Invalid / Die eingebildete Kranke" after Molière, adapted and translated by Martin Heckmanns, instead of "Gut Mut" by Martin Heckmanns for the opening of the 2024/25 season.