It's season-opening time in the supposedly chic thermal spa where complications become more plentiful than mineral water. From a balcony, four musicians seem to bounce melodies off the colorful mosaic-tiled walls, while staff dance with mops and buckets and the Site Master (Urbain Cancelier, properly self-important) screams orders. Bellman Batistin (author Patrick Haudecoeur, acting like Chaplin but looking like the old Phillip Morris page) must double as a repairman. When he nails down a key board, he takes a bow (thinking applause for the Master is his), the kind of visual gag of which the show contains multiples. So is the way Batistin is like putty around pretty Juliette, even though the Master has his eye on her and Batistin is in love with a maid (saucy Patricia Gregoire).
In a take-off on Grand Hotel, all line up to greet the Baroness as she comes through the revolving door -- twice, then gets her foot caught, then loosens it into a pail. She's accompanied by Charles, who wears a neck brace and speaks like a horn [sic]. There are a randy masseur, a dog KIKI whose name occasions word plays galore, and the very Parisian Matilde. Parodies of "My Man" and The Merry Widow play like vaudeville, but Matilde singing, stopping, then singing backward like a broken record reference burlesque. So do flirtations and touchy-feelies.
Author Haudecoeur obviously studied Mack Sennett for the "Sweet Georgia Brown" number, with men in long striped bathing suits while Bastistin momentarily appears in a thong(!) before a masseuse leads a tap-TAPS routine.
What would an operetta-like pile-up of songs and bag of farcical tricks be without a bathtub scene? Or looking for a lost dog? Certainly not Frou-Frou les Bains. It's a wonder the cast can keep the parodies straight. A bonus is finding the musical numbers so well executed. This is non-stop boulevard theater, well driven on a very broad lane to be a run-away hit of silly amusement.
