The Underpants

Comic Steve Martin has reinvigorated Carl Sternheim’s 1910 sociopolitical play into a laugh-out-loud farce complete with slamming doors, dropping drawers and sexual innuendo. Reminiscent of the great period sex farce of Georges Feydeu such as Hotel Paradiso or A Flea in Her Ear, The Underpants is about a comely wife, married to a boorish bureaucrat and longing for some adventure. She gets more than she bargained for after her lacy bloomers fall down around her ankles while she stands on her toes to watch a parade. Within minutes after her return home, several potential suitors who had witnessed the indiscretion line up to rent the rooms she and her husband have been trying for months to let.