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US by Georges Feydeau Directed and Adapted by Gulu Monteiro Translated and Produced by Clara Bellar Stages Theater Center, Hollywood, July-Aug. 2001 Genre: Farce Setting: 1900 Paris Roles: Monique Chandel, a jealous wife; and Eugenia, a lazy hotel maid
VIDEO:
 STORY: A wife tries to trap her perfectly innocent husband in a non-existent infidelity, but her scheme unleashes a host of unintended results. A classic French farce by the genre's master, considered by many to be the funniest play ever written. AWARDS:
- Theatre Alliance Ovation Award 2001 - New Translation and Adaptation PRESS:
"This 'Flea' Delivers a Stylish Bite at stages. Director, a dexterous cast and innovative staging mind buried treasures in farce."
PICK OF THE WEEK. "Stupendously funny. Clara Bellar is elegant as Monique Chandel, a woman who suspects her husband of infidelity."
"Flawless 'Flea' collars Laughs. It's been many moons since I've laughed so hard. Clara Bellar gets some choice mileage as a shiftless hotel maid." TOP 10 PRODUCTIONS OF THE YEAR. "Intimate and irreverent, a clever use of two venues, outside and inside. No laugh was too lowbrow." DAILY NEWS
"The most memorable moments of this production are provided by Bellar and Fitzgerald, who offer telling portrayals no matter what persona they inhabit. Bellar's quick-witted, coyly devious Monique is contrasted beautifully by her outing as Eugenia, the slow-moving but ever-observant cleaning lady who hates to clean."
CRITIC'S PICK. "Something extraordinary is going on at Stages Theatre Center."... "There are two women in the cast but seems to be more. Both delicately fashioned and reed-slender, they are Ann Michele Fitzgerald's blonde Antoinette and Parisian actress Clara Bellar (seen as the French Nanny Robot in Steven Spielberg's A.I.) as her brunette friend Monique. They doff fancy hats and fringed shawls and don masks, aprons and babushkas with uncanny alacrity to become silly simpering servitors. The play whizzes by, both indoors and out, without intermission. When a helicopter whirrs overhead, quick-witted Bellar incorporates it into her dialogue."
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