“There is a plague on this house, now take me to the bathroom!” exclaims one of the characters in the Theatre & Interpretation Center’s new production “A Flea in Her Ear.” While the script, set and cast are amazing, don’t expect the play’s humor to get out of the toilet.

“It’s almost like this is a big playhouse, with the bawdiness and sumptuousness of it all,” said Communication freshman and crew member Jonathon Lynch.

The action takes place in Paris at the end of the 19th century, a period notorious for its censure of sexual desires. Though the characters’ lusts are held in check by a whalebone corset of self-repression, these people are bursting at the seams. It’s not long before it all comes out.

Victor Emmanuel Chandebise is the dignified managing director of a life insurance company with a problem — he can’t get it up.

Naturally, his wife Raymonde thinks he’s cheating. She and her friend, Lucienne Homenides de Histangua, hatch a plot to snag Victor Emmanuel in the act.

“There’s no liar like a man unless it’s a woman,” says his wife as she sends him a phony love letter to lure him into a trap.

The conflict bubbles over at the hotel Coq D’or, a sleazy shag pad in the most famous red light district in the world. “A hotel that looks like it was carved out of nougat,” as one character puts it.

If you’ve never seen a farce before, get ready for slamming doors, fresh slaps across the face and broken hearts. Add to that a Prussian who accosts women and ravages them in his hotel room, a Spaniard who chases his wife with a revolver and a gentrified British doctor who wears a corset when he’s not on call.

“I’ve been flitting around from flower to flower,” says the deliciously lecherous Dr. Finache, played by Communication senior Patrick Frank.

Offstage, Frank offered some insight into the pathos of his character: “He’s kind of flamboyant yet self-concerned, and gracefully earthy.” Ah, so that’s where that Caberet-style get-up came from.

In this respect, credit is due to the excellent cast for truly knowing their roles. Every character in this play has a seedy past fraught with debauchery, but they each remain, as every good comic character should, blissfully unaware of each other. “A Flea in Her Ear” is a play that offers no atmospheric manipulations like light changes or sound effects, and no gimmicks aside from a revolving bed here and there. Just a rock solid script and a cast that works its ass off to make sure you never forget their characters. And really, what more do you need?

Well, maybe a set. Communication graduate student Thomas Birch designed the amazing backdrops. Anyone who has set foot in a dorm room on any campus anywhere will recognize the art immediately. You know those art nouveau posters your roomy puts up to feel more cultured? You know you love ’em. Birch knows you love them, too.

“You could hit on all the cultural things: that (this play) came at a very important time in French theater and it’s a very important sex farce, but really that’s all secondary to how funny it is,” Lynch said.

Another of the great aspects of “A Flea” is that everyone speaks in different dialects at different times to different people: Women speaking to women, men speaking to men, Spanish speaking to French, lovers speaking to whores. Nobody in “A Flea” knows what anybody else is saying, but their desires are universal. That’s why we get memorable lines like: “Orgies are out . . . when I take a wife other men are out of the question.” And “I am your friend but I’ll kill you like a mongrel dog.”

Unfortunately, there were no beautiful French accents to add to the continental pastiche that director Adam Burke has created. Thank God we’re on yellow alert, or we might not have seen the play at all.

“It’s like Three’s Company on crack,” said Lisa Perez, a Communication senior who plays Victor Emmanuel’s wife. “Because every episode of Three’s Company is a farce of mistaken identity.”

Which points out one of the many pitfalls of comedy — weeks of rehearsal can make even the raunchiest joke flaccid and useless, much like a Nick at Night rerun. The cast had to work hard for the funny.

“The jokes aren’t as funny anymore,” said Perez. “You have to take into consideration not only the goals for your scene and the play in general, but how it affects the audience.”

To add to the discomfort, most of the female cast members wear corsets under their dresses.

“It hurts, but it’s actually very helpful in being in the time period and sitting and standing,” said Stacey Jackson, a Communication senior who plays Lucienne Homenides de Histangua.

Judging by the finished product, the pain was worth it.

See “A Flea in Her Ear.” See it if you like language. See it if you like to laugh. But mostly see it because you’re in the mood to feel, qu’est-ce qu’ils dissent? Ah, yes. Tr