Delbarton is known for many things: challenging academics, renown sports, a tightly knit brotherhood, and its vibrant arts program. A big part of the arts program is the Delbarton Abbey Players, who performed “A Flea in Her Ear”written by Georges Feydeau and directed by Matthew Corica on October 27 until the 29th.
The story begins with Raymonde Chandebeis(played by Stella Burnside) and Lucienne(Morgan Lomax) sending an anonymous letter to her husband Victor(Francesco Pontoriero) telling Raymonde’s husband to go to a hotel with a shady reputation. Raymonde does this to test her husband’s faithfulness, but instead of Victor going himself, he hands the note to his friend Tournel (Abdiel Perde) who goes in order to steal Raymonde from Victor. Don Carlos (Daniel Pelayo), a violent Spainard, sees his wife’s, Lucienne, handwriting on the letter, and goes to the hotel to kill her in a jealous rage. Victor goes to the hotel to stop him, setting up a hilarious act involving a cantankerous manager, a look-a like porter, and a troublesome English man.
“A Flea in Her Ear” was a success for four reasons. First, the onstage set was visually appealing and helped facilitate the action. The stage crew designed and built a set that both looked good and took the form of three walls with plenty of doors, meaning that actors could go through many different doors and diffuse traffic as a result. Second, the plot was evenly split into three acts, which meant that all parts of the play received equal attention and the plot had time to both be introduced, developed and resolved. Third, the characters were hilarious and entertaining. The humor was primarily based around Victor and Poche, the porter, who were mistaken for each other by the rest of the characters leading to classic cases of mistaken identity. Finally, each character had their moment in the spotlight, as the time was taken to ensure that the audience fully understood who everyone was and what they were doing. Overall, this play was great and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it.
One problem with the play, however, rsts with the author. It is the slow first act, with its lengthy exposition; it was not especially funny compared to the second and third acts, which had the audience in stitches. The first act was very dialogue heavy, which made it not as fun to watch because one person was dominating the conversation with long monologues. Overall though, the first act succeeded in setting up the plot and humor in the second and third acts, so it did its job. All in all, I liked all three acts and the play was nearly perfect.
“A Flea in Her Ear” is now concluded, but the Delbarton community will once again see the Delbarton Abbey Players as they will return for the musical, “Anything Goes” by Guy Bolton and P.G Wodehouse. I congratulate all the actors on a job well done, and look forward to the Winter Musical.
