Farce is a matter of tastelessness -- jealous if not errant spouses and lovers, as well as outrageous characters giving weight only to trivialities. Feydeau, master of farce, never cooked up one tastier than A Flea in Her Ear. He used every ingredient: a wife feeling neglected, her husband not feeling UP to satisfying her, her dashing would-be lover, a ladyfriend willing to help her discover if her husband has a lover, the friend's jealous husband, a nephew who looks innocent but has secret affairs with one of the couple's wily servants, and a doctor whose favorite recreation spot is a hotel de rendezvous. In that curious kip, run by a sadist and his lascivious wife, work a lazy maid and masochistic servant (a dead ringer for the "lead" husband) while the owner's potted relative sleeps off a binge. The recipe blends mistaken identities, jealous rages, attempts at seductions and shootings with running gags: servant Poche's bad breath, Madam's perfume that makes everyone sneeze, hypnotic suggestion that works on the wrong man, an obnoxious concoction mistaken for a potable. All ingredients are served up in the requisite gilded drawing room (with lush furniture but for a file cabinet) and green scarlet-mahogany hotel, each decorated with appropriate nudes.
What makes Feydeau's early 1900s farce seem so unusual today, however, is its delicious political incorrectness! It makes fun of Camille, the nephew, with nothing but vowels to offer, whom few can understand because of his cleft palate (a handicap not named in this version -- perhaps as a p.c. concession or simply because of Bryant Mason's apparent limits in handling the problem). There's the macho Spaniard stereotype, Carlos (David Breitbarth, retaining the charm of a Zorro), a man with unrelenting sexual prowess and a lisp. The play hints that married, middle-class heroine Raymonde Chandebise (gorgeous Tessie Hogan) might well consider having an affair (and who might not with slick V Craig Heidenreich's roue?). After all, isn't her faithful husband intrigued by a billet doux, seemingly from an admirer? (Brad Wallace does impressive double-duty as Monsieur C., who occasions all the desperations, and as the alcoholic simpleton Poche.)
Could an ex-military man be more sadistic than John Arnold's hotelier, still in uniform with medals, given to riding Poche? Could anyone act more frustrated than Patrick James Clarke as a guest who speaks only German and can't find a fraulein? With handlebar moustache, Douglas Jones grins and grimaces broadly as a hapless physician. Feather-hatted Carolyn Michel is anything but feather brained as Madam's friend in need. Her awful Spanish is the last of many communication problems that serve as a leitmotif. Bruce Roach's stuffy Etienne is the best of the servants. Tria Xiong's hotel maid is worst. Costumes are sumptuous.
To director Peter Bennett's credit, timing succeeds admirably. What he's cut, however, makes hash of drunken Baptistin's part, wasting David Howard. A revolving hotel bed, usually a comedic high point, isn't. Several French words are consistently mispronounced, but these are all minor spots on the tablecloth of this otherwise real feast.
