Ashland High School Theatrical Society Presents

A Flea in Her Ear

A new version of Georges Feydeau's farce
by David Ives

November 12 &13, 2010 at 7:30PM and November 14, 2010 at 2PM

Auditions: 9/7 2PM, 9/8 2PM Call Backs

Winner of a 2006 Jefferson Award for best adaptation. "Ives' adaptation maintains the original's dazzling plot while communicating Feydeau's playful use of language to an American audience." —BackStage. "…[a] crisp, delightfully ridiculous translation…" —Time Out (Chicago). "…a hilarious evening of classic comedy." —Chicago Critic.

THE STORY: A FLEA IN HER EAR is the greatest of French farces, perhaps the greatest farce ever written. Raymonde Chandebise suspects that her husband, Victor, a placid and successful insurance executive, is secretly having an affair. To find out, she and her friend Lucienne write him an anonymous love letter suggesting a rendezvous at a shady hotel. Thinking the letter was intended for his coworker, Tournel, Victor sends Tournel off to make the rendezvous in his place. Lucienne's jealous Spanish husband, meanwhile, finds the letter, recognizes his wife's handwriting and takes his pistols to the hotel, hoping to catch her in the act. Meanwhile, Victor's nephew Camille tries to warn everyone about the mix-up, but his ridiculous speech impediment prevents anyone from understanding him. In Act Two, all decamp to the hotel where, it turns out, the drunken bellboy Poche is the exact double of the proper Victor Chandebise. Meeting Poche and thinking she's been caught by her husband, Raymonde keeps trying to escape from the hotel with Tournel, but a revolving bed keeps flinging them from room to room, as more and more of the involved parties pile into the hotel in a climax culminating in the entrance of the jealous Spaniard and his pistols. In Act Three the vortex spins even faster as all the parties return to the Chandebise home utterly confused about what actually happened and who was who at the hotel. The drunken bellboy arrives, is mistaken once again for Victor, and all the threads of the multiple mix-ups are sorted out as Victor and Raymonde recognize their mutual confusions and are reunited.