A Flea In Her Ear

Getting A Flea In Her Ear on Stage Actually Works If You Stop Overthinking It

I used to run a small theatre company and we mounted Feydeau's farce every couple of years. People always want to make it faster, sharper, somehow more modern. The play doesn't need that. What it needs is precision with the dialogue and people who aren't afraid to look foolish. I've seen three different productions over the years and the ones that actually landed were the ones that trusted the text. The full title in French is Un Fil à la Patte, first performed in 1894. The English translation you'll find most often is A Flea In Her Ear, named after the ridiculous incident where a man claims a flea jumped into a woman's ear. It is a farce in three acts with a cast of roughly ten or eleven characters, all caught in a web of mistaken identity, hidden letters, and a husband trying to prove his wife faithful while accidentally confirming everything. The structure is tight but fragile. Change one thing and the whole house of cards collapses. The most common problem I see in amateur productions is speed. People think farce means going fast. It doesn't. It means the timing has to be exact, not the tempo. The play reads quickly because the logic chains are complex, but performing it fast guarantees the audience misses the crucial cause-and-effect beats. My best experience was actually running about twenty percent slower than I thought reasonable. The laughs came harder and the plot stayed clear.

One specific edge case that nearly ruined our first production: the character of Lucienne. She is supposed to remain genuinely confused for most of the play, never catching on while the audience sees everything. In my first attempt, our actress played her too sharp too early and the final act lost its tension. I had to recast and rework the blocking so she physically stayed half a step behind what was happening on stage. It meant adjusting nearly every scene she was in. Took us two weeks of rehearsal. Worth it.

What Makes This Farce Actually Funny

Feydeau understood something most people miss: the comedy comes from logical consequences, not jokes. Every line a character speaks should be the only rational thing they could say given what they know. The humor arrives when the audience realizes those rational choices are leading everyone into a corner. So called butterfly effect comedy. One small misunderstanding compounds until the entire plot is a mess of lies trying to cover earlier lies. The play operates on a single premise taken to its absolute limit. A husband brings a stranger home to seduce his wife, a woman is falsely accused of infidelity through the flea incident, and an innkeeper gets pulled into the scheme because he once ran away with another man's wife. All three threads braid together in the third act and resolve in a way that feels both absurd and inevitable. That inevitability is what separates Feydeau from lesser farce writers. Another detail people overlook is the role of the maid. Gilberte isn't comic relief. She is the structural linchpin. She overhears conversations, misdelivers letters, and her confusion is what triggers most of the second act complications. If you treat her as a bit part, the middle section falls apart. I remember one production where we reduced her lines thinking we were trimming fat. The audience couldn't follow the plot at all. We added two pages back in and the show clicked.

Practical Directions for Mounting the Play

First, get a reliable translation. The original French version exists in several editions. Some translators take liberties with the dialogue to make it sound more contemporary, which usually makes it worse. The translation by Arthur Collignon is widely available and respects the structure of the original. The one by Roy Smiles works too but trims some of the finer complications. Test both before committing. Second, block the plays using the geography of a real house. Feydeau's stage directions depend on doors and stairs. You need at least three doors on stage and ideally a staircase visible somewhere. The third act finale requires characters to enter and exit through multiple points simultaneously. Our company learned this the hard way when our venue only had one usable door. We moved the action around the set and it still worked, but it took extra rehearsal time and looked slightly contrived. Pick a space with proper exits. Third, rehearsal technique matters more than most directors realize. Run the play scene by scene with full blocking before you touch pace. I know this seems backwards. Most people run through the whole thing first then block. With a farce this dense, starting with blocking prevents the cast from learning lines they then have to unlearn while adjusting to movement. We typically spent three days on Act One, two on Act Two, and two on Act Three before attempting a full run.

There is also a practical casting issue. The role of Mathurin, the innkeeper, is the hardest to cast. It requires someone who can handle rapid physical business while delivering lines with complete straightness. The character believes every ridiculous thing he says because he is terrified. If the actor winks at the audience or plays it for laughs, the whole illusion breaks. We found our best Mathurin by auditioning comedians who had never done straight scenes before. It worked better than anyone expected.

Common Problems and How to Fix Them

The biggest structural issue in amateur productions is the ending. Act Three resolves very quickly with every character getting their comeuppance almost simultaneously. Audiences sometimes feel rushed. The solution is simple: let the final revelations land one at a time instead of piling them together. Add small pauses between each reveal. It costs nothing in runtime and improves clarity significantly. Another issue is the flea itself. No one ever puts an actual flea on stage. It is always mentioned in dialogue and that is correct. But I have seen directors get creative with projection effects or sound cues. Don't. The absurdity works because it is never visualized. The moment you make the flea tangible, the play loses its comedic spine. Keep it invisible. Costume design tends to go too period heavy. A full nineteenth century dress rehearsal looks out of place in modern theatres. Simple period costumes work fine. The comedy survives as long as the clothing doesn't become the focus. One production I saw dressed the entire cast in matching striped shirts and nobody talked about anything except the dialogue.

Where to Find the Script

The play is in the public domain in most jurisdictions, so there are free editions available online. The Project Gutenberg version has the Collignon translation and it is readable though not perfect. For performance purposes, I recommend buying a licensed script from a dramaturgy publisher like Bloomsbury or Concord Theatricals. The performance materials they provide include accurate cutting suggestions and cast sizing that free editions lack. Not essential but useful if you are doing this seriously. If you are doing a reading or workshop, the free PDF will serve you fine. Just be aware that some stage directions in the public domain versions are sparse. Cross-reference with the French text if you hit a blocking wall. The French version Un Fil à la Patte has more detailed directions in most modern editions.

Why It Still Works After All These Years

I don't think Feydeau is popular because the plots are clever. They are predictable if you read the synopsis. I think it survives because the mechanics of the farce create genuine surprise. When done right, you don't know how the next scene will resolve until it resolves. That is a rare feeling in theatre. Most modern plays tell you how they are going to end in the first ten minutes. This one hides its destination until the final act. The other reason is straightforward: people enjoy watching intelligent chaos. The characters are all slightly flawed, mostly selfish, and completely unable to untangle their own messes. Seeing them sweat through increasingly desperate lies is universally funny. You don't need to understand French theatre history to get it. You just need a competent cast and a director who understands that the script does the heavy lifting. I have directed this play twice and watched it twice more in other companies. Each version felt different but the core was always the same. The text is reliable. It isn't fragile art that needs protection. It is a machine that works when you build it correctly. Stop treating it like a museum piece and it will perform like one.

One final note that isn't really a note: don't rush into this production because it is short and castable. I know the appeal. Two hours, eleven roles, three act structure. Easy to mount. It isn't easy to do well. The gap between functional and good is wide and it opens up quickly once you get past the first rehearsal. Budget your time accordingly. Six to eight weeks of rehearsal is the minimum for a competent production. Anything less and you are just running the lines.