PAGE 4
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1969
Eeydau's 6f rentic,' French farce to premiere
by Nelson Potter
The University Theatre
opened its season Wednesday
night with a production of the
classic French farce, "A
Flea in Her Ear," by
Georges Feydeau. A frenetic,
athletic, "Laugh-In'Mike,
MaCk' Sennett slapstick, the
university group's production
cuts the usual three hour
(rvith intermissions) three
r. it-comedy to a record-time
;3rformance only two
hours and ten minutes long.
The play can be seen on
Friday and Saturday nights
this week, and on Wednes
day, Thursday, Friday and
Saturday nights next week at
the Howell Memorial
Theatre.
"A Flea in Her Ear" is
pure entertainment. It
depends for its effect on the
fast pace, the sight-gag, the
sudden reversal, the
surprise, and the change ot
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pace (though that effect is
not used often enough).
It is all humor and little
wit, all prat-fall and little of
the comedy that is a reflec
tion on character. The au
dience (to say nothing of the
actors) are left panting and
exhausted with laughter and
with the effort to keep up.
The Feydeau classic is set
at the turn of the century in
Paris. Mme. Chandebise
(Diane Lee), for scarcely
adequate reasons, thinks her
husband is unfaithful. She
connives with a friend (Susan
Vosik) to send a love note to
her husband, as from a
secret admirer, inviting him
to meet her at the infamous
hotel, the Coq D'Or. (Does
the name have a double
meaning in French, as in
English?) She will there trap
her husband in his flagrant
intention.
By a series of passingly
plausible mixups, switches
and confusions, all the
Chandebise family, their
friends and hangers on, end
up at the Coq D'Or, avoiding
one another, looking for one
another, trying to kill one
another, running after, being
run after, surprising and
being taken by surprise, for
the duration of a madcap,
absolutely abandoned second
act.
The relations between the
characters have then been
tied into so many knots that
in Smaf
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it takes the entire third act,
which again is full of
mistaken identities, chases
and outraged confrontations,
to untie them all.
The play has the classic
form of a farce: the founda
tion for complications is laid,
complications ensue, and
they are then resolved.
But there are problems
with the play, indeed perhaps
with much of the genre of the
French farce. The main pro
blem is with the stock
characters.
One of them, Camille (well
played by Jan Van Sickle),
has a cleft palate, and hence
speaks without any con
sonants, so that no one can
understand him. Feydeau's
premise is that his speech
defect is funny; it is, in fact,
about as funny as Stepen
Fetchit.
And then there is a
Spaniard; he can't talk right
either he'th got a lithp,
like all Spaniards and like
all Spaniards he's ridiculous
ly hot tempered. And there
is a Prussian, who is sup
posed to be funny just because-
he can speak only
German.
These characters set. the
tone: we will laugh at, and
never with the characters.
We will always see them
from outside.
There is never in the
background of the play a
feeling that it is real human
beings who fall into com
plications because of human
lovable frailities as there is
in the ancestor of "Flea,"
Beaumarchais' (and
Mozart's) "The Marriage of
Figaro.". Nor is there the
background of social com
ment that one finds in
Beaumarchais,
In Feydeau the complica
tions are little more than
plausible excuses for
slapstick. So "Flea," though
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humorous and properly
farcical, Is also shallow and
morally hollow.
A production of a French
farce shoud be fast paced,
mannered, slapstick and
without depth of charac
terization and the
University Theatre's pro
duction entirely measures up
to these requirements
However, on the whole, the
pace and the volume were
too unbroken and too high. In
the first act too many good
lines were thrown away In
.he pursuit of pace.
Some of the funniest
moments were the occasional
quiet moments, and they
were funny because they
came with a sudden change of
pace:
They ask of a porter
(Stephen Gaines), resting in
the drawing room, "What's
he doing?" They look at him,
and he, oblivious to them,
slowly and luxuriously
belches. It's funny, because
it is such a shocking in
termezzo: it is for this that
everyone has quieted down.
Again, Gaines is funny as
he responds to the Doctor's
(Bill Szymanski) lullaby by
looking at once sleepy and
queasy; and when the Doctor
says, "A bird tells me you
want something to drink,"
and Gaines replies, slowly,
quietly, "Sly little bird."
Diane Lee's mugging of
fear, horror, delight, expec
tation, and all the rest, is
wonderful in its melodrama
like exaggeration; she's like
a young Margaret
Rutherford.
Mitch Tebo manages to
stay outraged as the absurd
Spainard from the beginning
to the end of the play; if
there were more moments of
calm and reason in the pro
gress of the play, they would
provide a background
against which the abusrdity
of his character would stand
out more sharply than it did.
Susan Vosik is very pretty
and properly frightened as
Mrs. Mad Spaniard.
Gaines Is excellent as the
respectable M. Chandebise,
and the unrespectable porter,
Poche. Paul Baker is funny
as the bordello hotel owner,,
though .his roie does not give
him the scope ihat his Mr.
Malaprop role did in last
summer's "Much Ado About
Nothing." Chris Ballant 1 is
funny in his small role as" the
rheumatic.
Some smaller touches add
'.o the production: The actors
are exaggeratedly made up,
which is in keeping with their
exaggerated, c 1 o w n -1 i k e
roles. The period furniture
and the period costumes aro
effective, especially the
former in the richly-colore.l
drawing room. And there k
humorous, effective, attention-getting
blocking of the
actors In the third act.
Finally, the problem of
pacing is a natural first-night
problem. There will probably
be better use made of the
change of pace, and the oc
casional contrasting quiet
moment in later evenings'
performances,
(Siflmflsr, 1
Friday, Oct. 24
Nebraska Union
Noon
Regents
12:30 p.m.
Placement
Student Affairs Discussion
Group 2
1:30 p.m.
A.Ph.A.
3 p.m.
AVS-"Shirley Chisholm"
7 p.m.
Muslim Student Ass'n.
MOVIE: "The California Ur
derground" ($1)
7:30 p.m.
Pi Beta Phi
Agriculture Economics Dept.
Reception
Inter Varsity Christian Fel
lowship 8 p.m.
MOVIE: "The California Un
derground" ($1)
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Get all the facts about Bendix Kansas City when the
Bendix placement representative visits your campus.
Wednesday, October 29, 1969
Thursday, October 30, 1969
Or you may writs to E. D. Cox
at Box 303-X, Kansas City, Mo. 64131.
Kansas City
Division
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