A
Flea in Her Ear,
by Georges Feydeau,
is often
held up as the quintessence of theatrical farce writing. Certainly, it
is as
much a model of that style as The Importance of Being Earnest is to comedy of manners or The Way
of the
World is to Restoration
Comedy.
It is the gold standard, then, of a style of comedy that has inspired
and/or
challenged so many writers to match or even surpass the French master.
The
current production at The Williamstown
Theatre Festival is a
gem –
it knows what farce should be (with the single exception of an actor I
will
come to later) and it knows how to deliver the goods. And I can add
that I am a
lover of this style but I have seen far too many efforts fail because
the
director or actors, or all of them, simply didn’t trust the material
enough to
resist forcing laughs or “inventing” business better left in a
rehearsal
studio.
In
Grade A farce, the key is to allow the
characters to play the unfolding events for real. In farce, a lie is
told and
then events overwhelm any and all who contribute to the lie or add lies
of
their own. In Feydeau’s world, lies are almost always accompanied by
mistaken
identities, fears of illicit affairs and a lot of slamming doors. It is
formulaic and, when well done, it is positively enchanting. But it must
be
played straight so that we can sit back and enjoy the chaos. The WTF
production, directed with fierce drive by John Rando, knows this very well, lays it all out
for us to
take in and then it speeds up, as it must, so that we can see and
experience
the characters’ panicky efforts to restore order.
The
lovely (intentionally overinflated) settings,
designed by Alexander Dodge
provide the large cast with the space they need to enter and exit and
run and
jump. The new theatre is an ideal venue – there is just enough space
for
actors to enter at a clip and leap, gazelle-like, to the next doorway
or
window. As they race about in Gregory Gale’s cleverly imagined fashions, they
speak at a clip that never gets
past them or us – the timing was well modulated and the frenzy
extremely
well sustained.
Producing
classic farce, like Feydeau, is a
wonderful opportunity for a company to show off its many skills, for
the
success depends upon the world of the stage and the actors who inhabit
it,
along with a director who can orchestrate and choreograph.
Rando
adds much to the strength of this Flea, though he is fond of gilding what
needs no
gilding at all. Inventive he is, and then some, but there are moments
in acts
two and three where the play would be better served with less business
and more
focus on getting through to the final curtain. This is especially true
of
scenes with Dr. Finache (Brooks
Ashmanskas). Whether it
is
director or actor is impossible to tell, of course, but the
character/actor was
wildly out of step with the rest of the company for most of his onstage
time.
Where the others were content to act, Ashmanskas seemed happier by far
dong
bits and shtick. He grew tiresome fairly early on and then sped past
tiresome
as he upstaged scenes in which he was an observer – I think it’s fair
to
say he got whatever can be gotten out of chewing, twiddling or sucking
a cigar.
Of
the others, Carson Elrod, Tom Hewitt, Kathryn Meisle,
and Sarah Turner
were ideal.
In the exacting double role of husband and bellboy, Mark Harelik was quietly tremendous. Asserting
himself through
character rather than trying to show off his dual roles and the speedy
costume
changes that accompanied them was both a tribute to the actor’s respect
for
ensemble playing and a greater tribute to his own intelligence. I
should add
that David Pittu,
who played
the Spanish husband, is the only actor I’ve encountered who has been
funny in
the role. And Pittu was exceptional, especially in his first act. There
is
nothing new about Spanish speaking characters butchering the English
language,
and often this kind of comedy falls flat very fast. However, Pittu
played his
scenes as though this was the first time any actor had played such
comedy and
it was just another of many pleasures to be had.
David
Ives, who is credited
as having written “a new version” of the play, is a
fine playwright on his own. His treatment of the Feydeau is deft,
though it is
very close to the John Mortimer translation that was produced by The National Theatre of Great Britain
in the
mid-60’s. Ives has made a number of changes, some of them more coarse
than the
play requires – they do get the laughs he is after – but Mortimer
is nowhere credited in the programme and I find that puzzling.