Season 58 Play 8 – A Flea In Her Ear by George Feydeau
Directed by
Cast
Antoinette Plucheux – Jacqueline Scott
Etienne Plucheux – Gareth James
Dr. Finache – David Poole
Lucienne Homenides De Histangua – Anna Yeadon
Raymonde Chandebise – Liz Hall
Victor Emmanuel Chandebise – Anthony Morton
Romain Tournel – Allan Hollings
Carlos Homenides De Histanqua – Anthony Calvert
Eugénie – Helen Procter
Augustin Feraillon – Graeme Holbrough
Olympe – Gilly Rogers
Baptistin – Jeff Peacock
Herr Schwarz – Stuart Farrell
Poche – Ronny O’Hamnott
Guests at the Hotel – BLT Members
Synopsis
Raymonde suspects her husband, Victor, of infidelity and she turns to her best friend, Lucienne, to help her gain proof. They concoct a ploy, based on a perfumed letter, to trap him at the Hotel Coq d’Or. In true Feydeau fashion the plan misfires; the plot is complicated by confused identities, revolving beds, a great many doors and the fact that the foolish hotel porter, Poche is the exact double of Victor.
Directors Notes
I have never been a big fan of farce. For a long time I associated farce with the Brian Rix, Whitehall variety. Some are very good but I find many to be too contrived and unbelievable. When the leading man loses his trousers and ends up in his wife’s dress in the broom cupboard just as the vicar calls for tea I can’t help but think, why didn’t he just go upstairs and get changed? Why then, you may ask, did I agree to direct one of the most famous farces of all time? My answer, to paraphrase some of the greatest farceurs in recent times, is that ‘this is something completely different’. Feydeau managed to write a complex and convoluted plot with all the ambiguity, confusion, deception, coincidence and miscommunication possible and yet still maintain the reality of the characters and believability of the story line. Couple with this a translation by John Mortimer and you have, what at least one critic called, possibly the funniest play ever written. Feydeau didn’t make it an easy play for director, cast and crew however. A set change from the wonderful house in the Boulevard Malesherbes to the seedy Hotel Coq d’Or, and back again, a leading man with an identical body double, a man with a cleft palate, a revolving bed and some 300 entrances and exits all conspire to make for some fantastic headaches, not to mention the fact that the play was not fully cast until the third week of rehearsal! Thankfully I have been blessed with a wonderful cast and crew. We may not quite achieve the claims of the critic but I sincerely hope that you leave the theatre tonight having been thoroughly entertained, if a little exhausted!
