“Safe and discreet! Hôtel Du Libre-Échange, 220 rue de Provence! Recommended for married people... together or separately!” When Mrs Pinglet, outraged by this advertisement, reads it out to her husband –who has just made an appointment at the very same hotel with the wife of his neighbour and partner Mr Paillardin– neither of them imagine that they will all unexpectedly end up there the following night. Accumulating no less than 279 entrances and exits, Georges Feydeau and Maurice Desvallières’ play was a triumphant success from its first performance in 1894.
For its entry into the Repertoire, this incredibly convoluted play is directed by Isabelle Nanty, a free-spirited artist equally sensitive to the vaudevillian’s crazy humour and his solitary and melancholic personality. In the course of a career rich in artistic collaborations, she has staged Chekhov, Ibsen and Schnitzler as well as broad popular comedies. She now takes on this hotel haunted by desire, which she imagines as a “dollhouse cross-section where everything happens simultaneously in plain view and in the wings”. A world for which Christian Lacroix has created the costumes and, for the first time, the sets. Isabelle Nanty’s primary focus is the surge of youthful vigour that surprises the characters, each finding, “perhaps for the last time, in the panic and the deep-seated fear of missing out on love, this fierce desire for life”.

Televised
This production will be televised on France 2

— Retrouvez la collection de Christian Lacroix inspirée de sa scénographie ici

AMONG FEYDEAU'S PLAYS performed at the Comédie-Française since Feu la mère de Madame (Madame’s Late Mother) in 1941, it is rare to find one that does not address the theme of adultery. It may only be implied sometimes but more often than not, Feydeau displays the infidelity of his characters, which they exhaust themselves in trying to conceal, cultivate or unmask.

While sometimes rendered faulty or uncontrollable for the needs of the plot, new sciences such as hypnosis and, similarly, magic and belief, provide means of escaping the vigilance of a jealous spouse (La Dame de Maxim, The Girl from Maxim’s). In Le Système Ribadier (Where There’s a Will), hypnosis is at the heart of the stratagem employed by the fickle husband, enabling him to slip away completely undetected. Well, almost... As for the discreet circulation of a letter, it represents a threat and a source of confusion as soon as it is transmitted to the wrong recipient (Chat en poche, Monsieur chasse) or sent anonymously to a husband to put his fidelity to the test (La Puce à l’oreille, A Flea in Her Ear). If the rendez-vous takes place in the conjugal home, one must succeed in concealing the compromising interloper (Occupe-toi d’Amélie, Take care of Amélie)! Sometimes, on the contrary, the lover wants to publicly reveal the relationship (Un fil à la patte, Cat Among the Pigeons).

Generally, any means is acceptable to arrange a romantic rendez-vous, but preferably outside the conjugal home and more often than not at a hotel... but the practice is prone to mishaps all the same (Le Dindon, La Puce à l’oreille). In Monsieur chasse, the bachelor pad is no better protected from the outside world and blankets remain the quickest means of concealment! In L’Hôtel du libre-échange, multiple mix-ups occur and it is dresses that denounce the unfaithful wife. This production directed by Isabelle Nanty marks the twelfth Feydeau play to enter the Comédie-Française Repertoire.

• Visual: Feydeau Georges – photo. Coll. Alain Feydeau

Directed by: Isabelle Nanty
Sets and Costumes: Christian Lacroix
Lights: Laurent Béal
Musics: Vincent Leterme
Choregraphy: Xavier Legrand
Assistant stage manager: Stéphanie Leclercq
Assistant scenography: Philippine Ordinaire