Facing our foibles: 'A Flea in Her Ear' is a night of frantic follies and fun

By Gwendolyn Rice, The Isthmus

June 27, 2017

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.

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