The Theater: L'Amour, the Merrier

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CHEMIN DE FER

by GEORGES FEYDEAU

The sex farce is not customarily regarded as a genre that falls within the province of dramatic genius. Yet the in spired lunacy of France's Georges Feydeau merits no lesser accolade. Some critics maintain that he wrote the same play 39 times in 35 years (1881-1916). That is only half-true. Feydeau's plots are like the Minotaur's labyrinth, except that they are apoplectically funny. One is led on and on with a zany Cartesian logic, but one can never retrace one's steps and relate the story coherently.

An unaccustomed Feydeau touch in Chemin de Per, which has been stylishly revived by Manhattan's New Phoenix Repertory Company, is that it is sexier than most of his other farces. Here, the adulterers actually do commit adultery as well as catapult through the wrong doors at the wrong times. The chase is carnal and frantic, and the tone is leeringly Marxian (Groucho Dept.). Rachel Roberts is having her first affair, and John McMartin is the mad man in her life. As Bea Lillie once said, it's a case of"L'amour, the merrier."

Feydeau was never restrained by the polite inhibition that one cannot kid the tonsils off a person who stutters, and his plays abound in incidental characters whom nature has shortchanged. He was a quintessential absurdist. With dead pan verbal incongruity a character may say, "Just because my life is ruined doesn't mean I can't act like a gentle man. After all, life isn't everything."

In this production a special bow should go to Director Stephen Porter, who keeps the pace as antic as a berserk windup toy. Should you care to get intoxicated on laughter, Chemin de Per is a madcap nightcap of a show. T.E.K