Theater Wit
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Feydeau-Si-Deau critically acclaimed
Georges Feydeau's sexiest and most groundbreaking farce opens in its Chicago premiere -- only 104 years late!
Don't miss the inspired lunacy that Time Magazine extolled as raising the sex farce to the level of "dramatic genius." Chanal's wife Francine is the sweetest, most faithful spouse imaginable. Well, the sweetest anyway. In her search for excitement she gets her lover's clothes thrown through windows, incites a duel, cures stuttering and turns marriages upside down. It's Theater Wit's most madcap effort yet, by a master of the genre at the peak of his career. Starring some of Chicago's best comic performers, including Colin Blackard, Matt Engle, Jennifer Grace, Maggie Graham, Ron Keaton, Jordon Keller, Ian Knox, Robert McLean, Melissa Nedell, Ed Rutherford, Helen Sadler, John Stovkis, Kevin Theis, and Bret Tuomi. Directed by Theater Wit artistic director, Jeremy Wechsler. Feydeau-Si-Deau is rife with sexual situations and comic nudity and may not be appropriate for younger viewers.
"Undeniably Delightful!"
The cards in play here include Francine, an unfaithful wife; her stolid but waspish husband; her hair-trigger lover, Fedot (pronounced like the playwright); the lover's innocent young wife; a drunken neighbor; and, in typical Feydeau fashion, a young man with a speech impediment. Jeremy Wechsler's astute staging for Theater Wit keeps the action in the late-19th Century, upper-middle-class Parisian world, and the set by Hang Le and Courtney O'Neill has the requisite doors for breathless slam-bang entrances and exits (even if a knob did fall off on opening night). Kevin Theis's swaggering arrogance and eventual humiliation as Fedot bring a certain disgraced New York governor to mind, and there are sterling turns by several supporting players, especially Ron Keaton as the bumbling drunkard and Matt Engle as a young swain tongue-tied in love. But if one tends not to like farce on general principle, there isn't much in this show that would change that verdict. Skillfully played, elegantly costumed by Laura B. Kollar, and with a few sly contemporary touches, "Feydeau-Si-Deau" is undeniably delightful, but the delights tend to be short-lived.In "Feydeau-Si-Deau," co-adapters Paxton Whitehead and Susan Grossman don't do much to update the source, a Georges Feydeau sex farce originally entitled "Chemin de Fer," after the complicated card game of the same name.
"Four stars! A dream cast of comic actors!" -- Timeout Chicago
Though we don't want to reveal too many of the particulars--the reveal of the who, what and with whom is what makes French farce worth watching--we can say this: The swinging partners in Feydeau-Si-Deau seem almost to advocate for open relationships. Working with a dream cast of comic actors, many of whom are afforded only a scene or two, Wechsler makes a decent case for Feydeau's brand of sex comedy with a lesser-known work (this adaptation, which premiered on Broadway in 1973, makes a belated Chicago debut). Maggie Graham, an actor who seems genetically engineered for screwball, is a standout in the lead female role, while Matt Engle channels his intensity into painstakingly choreographed physical comedy (and Jennifer Grace makes something out of nearly nothing in a delightfully quirky, tiny role).The original title of Feydeau's play is Chemin de Fer, for a French version of baccarat, a game in which the banker holds the cards (so to speak) until another player takes over his position. Theater Wit's cheeky but clunky new name evokes the spirit of Feydeau's intent with the square-dance allusion to changing partners; women are passed 'round and 'round in the course of the farce by a number of discontented male suitors.
"A Breathless Adultery Fest!" -- Chicago Reader
Justin Hayford writes,
In this breathless adultery fest (originally titled Chemin de Fer), French turn-of-the-century playwright Georges Feydeau proves he's the Bach of the bedroom farce. When two stultifyingly bourgeois Parisian couples unwittingly trade partners, they become ensnared in a web of deception, mistaken identities, police inquiries, and random gunfire. Feydeau's clowns dance impishly on a precipice of moral ruin.... The production ultimately delivers satisfying mayhem.