Raymonde and Lucienne are dear friends and Raymonde needs advice. Victor, her husband, hasn’t been performing in the sack, and she worries he’s buying cupcakes from a different bakery. (Please excuse the mixed metaphor). After some spitballing they’ve concocted the perfect scheme. They will send a love note from an anonymous admirer to Victor, begging him to meet at the notorious Frisky Puss. She claims she spotted him from afar at the opera. Victor (assuming it can’t be him) passes the note on to his handsome buddy Tournel, who sat him next him. Unbeknownst to Victor, Tournel and Raymonde have been flirting for years. Camille, Victor’s nephew, suffers from a pesky speech impediment. He meets Dr. Finache (a family physician) at the same, crass, debauched hotel, where the good doctor presents him with a silver palate, which miraculously works. As intersecting rendezvous bring most of the characters to The Den of Moral Turpitude, they encounter a drunken hotel employee named Poche, a doppelganger for Victor. A doppelganger is a dead ringer by accident. Supposedly we all have one.
A Flea in Her Ear (adapted by David Ives from Georges Feydeau’) is a French Sex Farce, a comedy of errors. Misguided conclusions, unlikely coincidence, male bravado, insecurity, the need for extramarital (or otherwise inappropriate) recreation. Playwright George Feydeau’ aims, I’m guessing, for the folly of French hubris, with all it’s pretensions of elevated reasoning and lofty behavior. Sex is messy, spontaneous, embarrassing, and fraught with possibilities for disaster. If something bad can happen, it must. If you try to stack the deck, you’ll regret it. As with any farce, havoc ensues. Doors continuously slam, no one simply leaves, they scram. Weapons are drawn, brawling and scrapping, a given. Characters are subjected to shame, humiliation, ridiculous ordeals. I think the reason we call this “adult comedy” is the grown-ups have lived long enough to know, absurd though it may be, A Flea in Her Ear is not necessarily as improbable as we’d like to hope.
There’s a certain appeal to the visceral in Flea. A tendency to aim lower, when everyone else is aiming low. Much is made of the hotelier/pimp’s penchant for delivering beatings. The hilarity of Camille’s pointless attempts to communicate. Victor and Dr. Finache interrupted just as he’s dropping his trousers for inspection. Jealous husbands set more on homicide than confrontation. Perhaps its the simmering hormones? Perhaps the urgency of sybaritic appetite? Perhaps it’s the satisfaction of witnessing how (the best?) sex turns the most noble of mammals into hogs, squealing in the mud.
Do I recommend Allen Contemporary Theatre’s tongue-in-cheek, frenetic, posh–not posh production of A Flea in Her Ear? I do. Ne touche pas.
Allen Contemporary Theatre presents A Flea in Her Ear (Georges Feydeau’, adapted by David Ives) playing June 30th -July 16th, 2023. 1210 East Main Street, # 300, Allen, Texas 75002. 844-822-8249. allencontemporary theatre.net