About the Play:

A Flea in Her Ear is a full-length farce by Georges Feydeau, adapted by Frank Galati. Mistaken identities, attempted indiscretions, and a hilarious cast of characters combine with uproarious results in an explosively funny version of Georges Feydeau's classic farce A Flea in Her Ear. This adaptation retains the antic, pell-mell humour of the original while making the people and the action of the play pertinent to our own times.

A Flea in Her Ear is one of the funniest plays ever written! It was adapted and updated to move the action of the play into the twentieth century (which serves to heighten the sexual allusions which make the play so hilarious). The action follows the pattern of the famous original: a complex series of mistaken identities, clandestine assignations and misplaced but explosive jealousies – all happening at breakneck speed. In this case things begin to go awry when Victor Deboshe, a respectable businessman, is wrongly suspected of sexual infidelity by his suspicious wife, Yvonne. To test his fidelity she has her friend Lucille write an anonymous letter to Victor, claiming to be infatuated with him and proposing a rendezvous at the notorious Hotel Pussy a Go-Go. Thinking a mistake has been made, Victor persuades his friend Maurice (a famous womanizer) to keep the appointment for him. When Maurice arrives he finds Lucille's violently jealous husband (a hot-blooded Spaniard), waiting for him, after which the complications begin to multiply uproariously. Eventually, as must be, things are somehow untangled and set right, but not before chaos ensues. This French farce runs amuck with slamming doors, mistaken identities and mismatched partners – all of which will leave audiences happily breathless from laughter.

A Flea in Her Ear is the greatest of French farces, perhaps the greatest farce ever written. This version of Feydeau's 1907 masterpiece was first produced in 1988 by Chicago's Goodman Theatre. The play has become an established favourite among leading regional professional theatres and is regularly performed in college theatre productions as a showcase of student talent.

Cast: 5 female, 10 male

What people say:

"…completely invigorating, stylistically polished and robustly buoyant…compelled the audience to roar in laughter until tears rolled down many cheeks." — Chicago Defender

"…brilliantly transported to the mid-1960s by Frank Galati…." — Chicago Daily Herald

"Absolutely hysterical." — WXRT-FM Radio

About the Playwright:

Georges Feydeau (1862-1921) was a French playwright of the era known as the Belle Époque. He is remembered for his many lively farces. He wrote over sixty plays and was a forerunner of absurdist theatre.

Frank Galati (1943-2023) was an American director, writer, actor, and teacher. A long-time member of the legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, he was winner of Tony Awards for the adaptation and direction of The Grapes of Wrath in 1990, and was nominated for an Oscar for co-adapting The Accidental Tourist for the screen. His long career also included teaching performance study at Northwestern University for nearly 40 years.