Reviews 2001
Reviews 2001
✭✭✭✩✩
by Georges Feydeau, translated by John Mortimer, directed by László Marton
Soulpepper Theatre Company & Mirvish Productions, Elgin Theatre, Toronto
February 23-April 8, 2001
“A Truffle Drowned in Chocolate Sauce”
The Soulpepper production of Feydeau's classic 1907 French farce, “A Flea in Her Ear” (“La Puce à l'oreille”) is a case of plusses and minuses. In general, the plusses outweigh the minuses, but for an expensive production that is part of the Mirvishes' season, there really should be far fewer minuses than there are. A well-directed farce has the power to leave an audience positively weak with laughter. Here one tends to feel more exhausted than purged.
In the play Madame Chandebise becomes obsessed with the notion that her husband's sudden lack of interest in sex with her means he has taken to seeing other women. To trap her husband she has her best friend Lucienne write an anonymous letter proposing a rendezvous an Georges Feydeau, translated by John Mortimer, disreputable Hotel Coq d'Or. Monsieur Chandebise, however, thinks the letter must be meant for his handsome friend Monsieur Tournel. Confusion multiplies since there are in fact two Monsieur Chandbises, the husband Victor and his nephew Camille, and worse, the servant who works at the Hotel Coq d'Or looks exactly like the husband. In the classic tradition of farce, the play becomes an increasingly intricate game of who knows what when with misunderstandings piling up until they collapse under they own weight.
The main flaw in this production is the lacklustre translation of John Mortimer. The humour is rather hit and miss with as many misses as hits. Frequently, the language is unidiomatic and actors often have awkward mouthfuls to speak. One might have thought that the author of the Rumpole stories would have made the text much wittier, or that Soulpepper would have commissioned a new adaptation.
The flaw is compounded by the direction of László Marton. After seeing such fine work for Soulpepper as his "Platonov" and "School for Wives", I was surprised to find the play not working as well as it should. Farces are different from romantic comedies in that the complexity of the play lies entirely in the plot not in the characters, who tend to act primarily like bipolar machines. So-and-so will react this way when this happens, but the opposite way when that happens. In the frequent chase and escape scenes in this production, Marton has the actors toddle about in a row, arms jerking, as if they were wind-up toys. When actors react in unison to a situation, he has them hold their position, turns their heads to the audience, react, then turn back. In the hotel scene characters always seem to take the long way up and down the double staircase to get anywhere. For these chases he has Kevin Lamotte shift lighting from normal to "weird" and adds live piano accompaniment. Marton is trying to emphasize the generic and mechanical aspects of the farce, but farces are already so generic and mechanical the emphasis is not only unnecessary but leads to a self-consciousness which kills the humour. Farces are like chocolate truffles--they are not necessary but they can be delicious. It's unpleasant to point out how many empty calories they have and worse to serve them in a pool of chocolate sauce.
This problem even extends to the set. While William Schmuck's five-door salon for Act 1 and 3 is quite lovely, he has designed an over-elaborate set for the hotel of Act 2 with thirteen doors. This is supposed to be a joke on the wall of doors of a typical farce set. Unfortunately, since the play requires only half as many doors, the crucial question of who is behind what door when, becomes confusing when it should be absolutely clear. If, because there are so many possibilities, we lose track of who is behind what door, the set-ups for the characters' mechanical reactions, and with it the humour, doesn't work.
That the show succeeds despite these misjudgements is due entirely to the work of a few seasoned actors. Principal among these is Diego Matamoros in the dual role of Monsieur Chandebise and the look-alike porter Poche in the Hotel Coq d'Or. He finely distinguishes the two in posture, gesture and sense of humour so that we always knows who is who even when they are wearing each others clothes. Stephen Ouimette as his nephew Camille would seem to have gone downmarket from such former roles as Hamlet or Richard III, except that he proves he is also a master of the farce style. He uses hyponasal speech to simulate (incorrectly) a person with a cleft palate. Since it is far too politically incorrect to laugh at a person with such a malady, Ouimette makes Camille such a likably dopey character that we laugh more at his personality than his speech defect. Tom McCamus does very well at capturing the vanity of Monsieur Tournel, who needs so little persuading to believe an anonymous love letter is meant for him. Most forceful of all is Tony Nardi as the murderously jealous, Spanish-speaking husband of Madame Chandebise's best friend. Like the other three actors, he knows that the best way to make a farce funny is to show that a character views the action with the utmost seriousness.
Among the women, Liisa Repo-Martell and Colombe Demers as Madame Chandebise and her best friend Lucienne present a study in contrasts. Demers is fully attuned the nature of farce that requires a strong outward presentation of character rather than psychological depth. Her poise and gesture along with the ability to carry off Lucienne's breakneck explanation (in Spanish) of the plot to her husband make her perfect for the role. Repo-Martell, on the other hand, is best known for finely nuanced psychological portraits. However, complex inwardness is the opposite of what farce requires, and while she does quite well, she doesn't give her character the strong external presentation it needs.
The rest of the cast succeed only partially in bringing off their roles. Jim Warren as the Chandebises' butler, Ric Reid as the doctor and Michael Hanrahan as the militaristic owner of the Hotel Coq d'Or all need to create clearer, stronger characters. Maria Vacratsis’ talents are wasted as the hotel owner's wife, while Patricia Fagan as the hotel maid still needs more vocal coaching. Melissa Moore as the butler's wife, William Webster as the hotel's resident invalid and especially Cliff Saunders as the randy German sailor are all more successful in their minor roles.
The last professional production of Feydeau in Toronto and environs was Richard Monette's relentlessly unfunny "A Fitting Confusion" at Stratford in 1996. The same year saw Christopher Newton's hilarious production of the British farce "One for the Pot" at the Royal Alex. As Newton nears his retirement, we have to wonder who there will be in Ontario who has just the right touch to serve up these theatrical bonbons.
©Christopher Hoile
Photo: Diego Matamoros as M. Chantebise and as Poche. ©2001 Soulpepper.
2001-03-12
A Flea in Her Ear