Eastern Michigan University invites you to check in at "Hotel Paradiso"

For while “Hotel” primarily focuses on a married Parisian man named Pinglet, the play also features his friend, Mathieu, and his four daughters; Pinglet’s wife, Angelique; the married woman who lives next door (with whom Pinglet arranges a secret rendezvous at a local hotel); her husband, who’s just been hired by the same hotel to investigate reports of ghosts; her young nephew, who ends up staying at the hotel with Pinglet’s maid; and a police inspector; a prostitute; an artist; police constables; and the hotel’s owner, clerk, and luggage carriers.

“There have been times when I’ve said to the actors, ‘In this 3-ring circus, this is what has to happen,” said Seibert. “Because you’ve got stuff all kinds of stuff happening in different parts of the stage. At some point, the audience can be selective regarding where they’re looking. If they want to watch here, in this one spot, they can. And that’s part of the fun.”

Seibert’s no stranger to farce, having directed Michael Frayn’s “Noises Off!” at EMU in 2006. And while Seibert hadn’t previously read or seen “Hotel” — EMU drama department director Ken Stevens suggested the show — he’s found it less confounding, logistically, and thus more open to experimentation and play among the actors.

Even so, the play has another potential minefield.

“If you’re not careful, not many of the characters come across as too likable,” said Seibert. “These people are amoral more than immoral. They’re all more concerned with appearances than with their behavior, which was part and parcel of the time. … And that really is the case with all these people.”

Seibert chose to use the “Hotel” translation by Peter Glenville — who also directed the 1957 Broadway production of the show, starring Bert Lahr and Angela Lansbury — while giving some scenes a more contemporary update, inspired by more recent adaptations.

In a way, this hybrid approach seems in keeping with Feydeau’s methodology.

“Feydeau, when staging his own plays, was more interested in the staging than the writing, and he had help — he had some other playwrights who helped him out,” said Seibert. “His work seems to live more in the physical moment-to-moment staging, and that seemed to take precedence. So I like to think that he wouldn’t mind the little playful changes we’ve made to the text.”

By today’s standards, a 3-act play might seem antithetical to comedy’s “less is more” axiom; yet Seibert thinks pacing and energy must drive the production, and that the work still works better on a stage than in any other medium.

“I was just reading something this morning … that quoted the guy who attempted to turn (‘Hotel’) into a screenplay in the early 60s,” Seibert said. “He talked about how difficult it is to translate Feydeau’s comedy to film. He said, ‘It thrives on the restrictions of the proscenium stage, where the very limitations of space impart a focus and an intensity that the camera destroys with its limitless virtuosity of movement.’

“So it works best on a traditional proscenium stage because of the way Feydeau writes asides — in the style of the vaudeville acts of the era. When a character shares an intimate moment with audience, the audience becomes another character. How can you do that on film? You can’t.”

Jenn McKee is the entertainment digital journalist for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.