La Puce à l'Oreille

by Georges Feydeau

The wife of an insurance magnate, suspicious that her husband is having an affair, sends him a lascvicious invitation from an "anonymous" admirer, just to see if he'll show. The action of A Flea in Her Ear, one of the best-known French farces, takes us to the sleazy Lanterne Rouge Hotel with a fine crop of mocking, mistaking, insulting, groping, kicking and mimicing, all in a spanking new translation.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama, Fiction, France, Classics, French Literature

381 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1907

About the author

Fils d'un romancier, il est le maître du Baudeville.Il porte ce genre mineur à la perfection avec une grande maîtrise technique .

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t know if it’s the translation done by Graham Anderson, but A Flea in Her Ear did not delight me as I expected. For all I’m normally a sucker for boulevard comedies, I had trouble getting into this tale of infidelity, mistaken identity, and of course, expertly timed entrances and exits. I think I might try out the Ives translation before I give a definitive verdict. If Ives can’t convince me, then I might just have to say this one’s the exception to the rule. Quasi-recommended.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps more than any drama, farce suffers greatly from sub-par execution on stage, but if you can catch a good production of this, your sides will hurt from laughing so convulsively.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wife suspects her husband of adultery when his appetite for her in bed abruptly diminishes, so she contrives with her friend to lure him to a hotel known for illicit meetings (the Hotel Coq d’Or, lol) to catch him in the act. Adding to the sex farce are two other couples and a family friend, some of whom have big libidos and play around. After a strong first act filled with double entendres and a fair degree of sexual freedom for 1907, the play degenerates into madcap chaos at the hotel. Feydeau makes use of a servant character who looks identical to the husband, as well as a bed in the hotel which rotates in from another room at the push of a button to add to the mayhem, and soon people are running all over the place confused about who’s cheating with whom. If some of that sounds familiar and you’re an Ingmar Bergman fan (e.g. the bed in ‘Smiles of a Summer Night’), well, Bergman was a love of Feydeau and was almost certainly influenced by him. It’s an amusing little read, but not much more.

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bottom line first: Sorry but A Flea in her Ear is better than my review. My recommendation is to see it rather than read it. Or better yet, read it first then see it. You may miss some of the best lines as the audience may well be laughing over them.
I get it. We, or some of us are attempting to build an entirely new sense of esthetics. What is more the values we are going to put into place are not yet defined and so the rush to reto judge which of the past 2500 years of arts an entertainment will be retained is still open and fluid.
If asked to chose between those who would use law to ban books, and those who only call on social media platforms to defund the suddenly unacceptable, a plague on both their houses.
The foundational farces of George Feydeau are aplenty of things to offend seekers of isms and defenders of the faith. Particular to A Flea in her Ear, if I am going to take the battle to against either extremes, I think the text is not enough to drive me to the barricades
Farce, especially those of Feydeau are based on timing, accent and physicality. None of these things carry well in a text. For example, there is a running joke about a character who only speaks English and is therefore not understood by most of the French speaking cast. Leaving a reader looking at not understood English on a page of understood English.

For the rest we have an extended variations on suspected infidelity, a honey trap to smoke out the infidelity, several other characters who are or are seek to engage in infidelity. Sorry but a bare bones summation hardly sounds funny. There is much in the development that is at least amusing. That much of the action takes place in an infamous hotel called the Hotel Coq d’Or tells you something about the level of humor.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Flea in Her Ear is a French farce published in 1907. The plot involves a mixup of identities between two look-alike characters: the respectable owner of an insurance company and a porter in a love hotel. There is plenty of surprises, such as a bed attached to a revolving wall that causes more confusion for the characters. There are intense emotions from hotheaded spousal jealousy and secretive promiscuity to sincere helpfulness. The take away here may be that social respectability or its absence is distinct from human nature.

[Charlie Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there are some well set up twists, there's far too much going on here. It gets messy, and not in the good way that farce often does. The Englishman Rugby is a completely unnecessary character and the twist of the two identical strangers might have worked in a play where that caused the central confusion, such as the Comedy of Errors, but adding it in halfway through as an afterthought felt intellectually dishonest to the audience. Having said that, it is funny in places. But far too long...

[David Sterritt]

Feydeau’s “A Flea in Her Ear” is the archetypal French farce, and it’s certainly a rambunctious affair in John Mortimer’s translation, which incorporates a bit of material (most notably some disability humor) that a 21st-century production would probably omit. Even on the page, it has a visuality and sense of movement that distantly recall the visually oriented stagecraft of some adventurous American theater in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Which is a plus for me.

[Sydney · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you can’t get past the blatant racism, sexism, and ableism then this is a pretty great example of physical comedy and farce. Personally, it’s easy for me to say we can overlook such inappropriate elements but in today’s day and age this play just doesn’t sit right..

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the most overtly sexual play of the times in the fun sense, unlike the tormented sense the Scandinavians brought to it.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

My version is translated by Carol Johnston. Very funny. Complicated staging with revolving bed platform. "Performance anxiety" jokes. 2 sets.

[Kevin Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious! I really wanna see this play live!

[Alen Brletić · Rating 3 out of 5]

...ovo doista želim vidjeti

[Charlie Devlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nicely upbeat and incredibly humorous play.

[Jordan Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little play really surprised me! My edition gave me no clue as to its content, though I was able to distantly recall the name Feydeau as being related to the Bell Epoque era.
This farce proved impossible to put down once I started it, and I devoured it in one sitting.
The characters are distinctive and memorable - my favorites being a man with a speech impediment, a crazed jealous Spaniard, and an arrogant, flirtatious husband.
Witty dialogue, fast paced scenes of confusion and uproar, and a plot full of trickery, impersonations, mistaken identity, and investigations make this play unforgettable. In "A Flea in Her Ear," a wife suspects her husband of being unfaithful, so she writes him a supposed love letter from another woman, to test his reaction.
Typical of French literature, this book is endlessly clever and full of sharp humor, as well as plenty of suggestive laughs that often do more than just suggest.
This play is one of my favorites! If you like "Don Juan," Shakespeare's comedies, or Oscar Wilde, you'll love this play.
I will definitely be reading more of Georges Feydeau!

[Olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before Bean or Fawlty; before The Goodies and definitely out-Seinfelding Seinfeld were Alan Ayckbourn and Norman Rix. BUT before them, notwithstanding Oscar Wilde, were FEYDEAU and Moliere.
A long tradition of clever, behind-the scenes mis-matching affaires, outrages and plain muddle cleverly stitched into smooth side-splitting humour and fun.
Not slapstick, not buffoonery. Clever word play with slick performances to contrive quick humour with a hint of malice.
Too funny. Too good to miss. Especially if well-staged. They do not age. Some of the more modern protagonists do suffer from 'topic fade' which is always a problem for a comedian. However, these tend to be timeless. The plight of humans in precarious positions. The problems people create for themselves in order to benefit then failing miserably. Quite often.

[Chiyanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite play of my college career thus far. This play is hilarious. I played the character of Senor Don Carlos Homenides de Histangua.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raymonde is a delight!

[Dan Blackley · Rating 3 out of 5]

French farce.

[THOMAS]

Saw as a play at A Noise Within 2015