Play Readers Meet Tomorrow

It is again the time for the Anonymous Play Readers to meet at Paragraphs and discover a new play by reading aloud the various roles. This month, JoAnn Evans has selected another farcical romp.

A Flea in Her Ear (in French: La Puce à l'oreille) is a play by Georges Feydeau written in 1907. The original takes place in Paris at the turn of the century. The version we will be reading from is an adaptation by Frank Galati which brings the action into a 1960s world.

Although the modern version renders the dialogue more accessible to a modern audience, the action follows the pattern of the famous original: a complex series of mistaken identities, clandestine assignations and misplaced but explosive jealousies — all happening at breakneck speed.

The story begins when Victor Deboshe, a middle-class insurance salesman, becomes impotent, leading his wife, Yvonne, to assume that he has taken a mistress. To test his fidelity she has her friend Lucille write an anonymous letter to Victor, claiming to be infatuated with him and proposing a rendezvous at the notorious Hotel Pussy a Go-Go. Thinking a mistake has been made, Victor persuades his friend Maurice (a famous womanizer) to keep the appointment for him. And as can be expected, this leads to a series of complications and misunderstandings that are the ingredients of farcical theater.

Before the situation is inevitably untangled and things set right, the action will include a violently jealous and hot-blooded Spaniard husband, a suicidal leap from a window and a nephew with an unfortunate (but hilarious) speech defect. Include a furious Indian fakir and a lascivious butler, then add the necessary slamming doors, revolving beds and some wildly amiss gun shots, and you have all the hysterical, humor of classical farce.

As described by the Dramatists Play Service:

An up-to-date and explosively funny version of Feydeau's classic farce, which retains the antic, pell-mell humor of the original while making the people and the action of the play pertinent to our own times. First produced by Chicago's Goodman Theatre, the play has become an established favorite among the nation's leading regional professional theatres.

We would love to have you join us to read or just listen and learn more about a "A Flea in Her Ear".

Paragraphs
October 11, 2010 at 7:00pm