The play contains all the ingredients that made him the vaudeville master: burlesque situations and overlapping cases of mistaken identities, with lookalikes thrown in for good measure. With its impressive construction and remarkable inventiveness, it is akin to “a fireworks display set off over an anthill” as critics described it back then. The primary source of the confusion that prevails throughout the play is a package opened “by mistake” by Mr Chandebise’s wife, Raymonde: it contains suspenders sent from the Minet-Galant hotel. Miffed, she is sure her husband is being unfaithful. She asks her friend Lucienne to write a letter to invite her husband to a rendezvous in the same hotel. The accomplice’s plan goes terribly wrong, as her own husband stumbles upon her letter and becomes convinced he is being cheated on too... All the characters end up at Le Minet-Galant where the hotel porter, Poche, is a dead ringer for Raymonde’s husband.
La Puce à l’oreille is a quintessential troupe play, taking the ingenious use of stage resources to new limits with an “emergency staircase” and, most notably, a stratagem to make adulterous couples disappear at the slightest alert. After touring throughout the country between January and March 2024, the show is making a stop in Nanterre for a series of thirty performances.

Spectacle créé Salle Richelieu le 21 septembre 2019

Production Comédie-Française
Coréalisation Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers

DVD
en vente à la boutique

Direction: Lilo Baur
Set Design: Andrew D Edwards
Costume Design: Agnès Falque
Lighting Design: Fabrice Kebour
Original Music and Sound: Mich Ochowiak
Movement Design: Joan Bellviure
Artistic Collaboration: Katia Flouest-Sell

and
Comédie-Française Academy actors

(cast to be announced)