Liz Lauren
Cristina Panfilio, Nate Burger and Kipp Moorman in the politically incorrect French farce.
Good communication is essential in a marriage. In an institution built on mutual admiration and trust, husbands and wives have a duty to talk through any problems they might have — or chaos could quite literally ensue.
That’s what happens in American Players Theatre’s production of A Flea in Her Ear, a farce by Georges Feydeau that runs through October 7 in the Hill Theatre. Adapted and directed by former APT artistic director David Frank, it is a thoroughly funny play about love, sex, jealousy, betrayal, miscommunications and mistaken identities — drenched in French perfume.
Trouble starts in the bedroom, where the uptight and proper Victor Emmanuel Chandebise (David Daniel) is having a hard time performing his husbandly duties. His beautiful, bored society wife Raymonde (Kelsey Brennan) assumes that his disappointing bedroom performances are due to an affair. She sets a trap for him with the help of her none-too-eager friend Lucienne (Andrea San Miguel). An anonymous letter to Victor Emmanuel suggesting a tryst lights the fuse for the farcical fireworks that follow — primarily at the inn of ill repute, the Mount Venus Hotel.
The play benefits from APT’s new stage, with multiple locations for entrances and exits and room for an essential set piece, a revolving bed. Director Frank makes good use of all the extra space, including staircases and windows where actors flee while being pursued by an angry husband, an employer, a jealous Spaniard, an innkeeper or a randy Hun.
Written in 1907, long before anyone had heard the term “politically correct,” much of the comedy in A Flea in Her Ear relies on ethnic stereotypes, impenetrable foreign languages and problems with translation and speech. Jonathan Smoots, for instance, plays an amorous Prussian who only speaks German but communicates clearly (and hilariously) what he’s looking for. Since his hotel room is mistaken for an exit or hiding place by virtually every other character, he has plenty of visitors to his bed, despite the language barrier. Even more delightful is Juan Rivera Lebron, who plays the fiery Spaniard Don Homenides de Histangua. The classic Latin lover whose passion for his wife Lucienne is accompanied by violent fits of jealousy, Lebron is cartoonishly funny, wielding pistols throughout the play and threatening to kill anyone who may have compromised his wife. When the couple finally sorts out situation, most of the conversation is lost on the audience, because it is conducted in rapid-fire Spanish, but it is refreshing to see to people on stage communicate with one another so clearly.
Funniest and most inappropriate of all, Nate Burger plays Victor Emmanuel’s nephew Camille, who suffers from a severe speech impediment that allows him only to utter vowels and no consonants. Incomprehensible at first, the listener quickly tunes in to his sing-song delivery, which is corrected temporarily with a silver mouthpiece. Burger’s struggle to communicate with those around him is one of the most affecting and entertaining parts of the play, even though it feels immoral to laugh at his disability. Burger succeeds brilliantly in this challenging role.
David Daniel magically transforms from the prim businessman Victor Emmanuel to his doppelganger, a drunken and much abused ex-soldier who is a porter at the Mount Venus Hotel. Leaving as one character and re-entering a split second later as the other — complete with costume changes and physical and vocal transformation — Daniel is a wonder, almost convincing the audience that he must indeed have a twin.
As the charming wag Tournel, Marcus Truschinski also deserves special recognition, not only for his flair for physical comedy, but also for spending half of opening night wearing only his underwear or a bedsheet in frigid 50° weather while the audience was bundled up in coats, sweaters and heavy blankets.
Stuffed with mad dashes, clever fight choreography and frustrated desire, A Flea in Her Ear is a funny production that illustrates the trouble we cause ourselves through our own foolish machinations. The fact that the main character, Victor Emmanuel, is a successful insurance agent — in business to plan for and lessen the sting of the unexpected — underlines the fragility and uncertainty of the world, particularly when we meddle with it.
