Status
Available
Genres
Publication
New York : S. French, c1966.
Description
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.
User reviews
LibraryThing member gbill
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,
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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 in 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. Show Less