Je ne trompe pas mon mari!
What is now one of his most popular plays, La Puce à l'oreille (A Flea in Her Ear), had closed prematurely after 86 performances in 1907, following the sudden death of one of its stars, but its successor, Occupe-toi d'Amélie!
[4] Feydeau hoped that the cocotte, Bichon, would be played by Armande Cassive whom he had discovered in 1899 for his La Dame de chez Maxim and subsequently moulded into his ideal leading lady, but she was unavailable.
[5] The play opened at the Théâtre de l'Athénée, Paris, on 18 February 1914 and ran until the customary summer closure of the theatres in July, a total of 200 performances.
The second act is set in Saint-Franquet's studio in Paris, where the personages coming and going include Bichon, Des Saugettes and Miss Doty.
She, finding her husband is cheating on her, decides to return the favour, and comes in pursuit of Saint-Franquet at the moment when he has just promised Miss Doty to marry her.
Edmond Stoullig wrote in Les Annales du théatre et de la musique, "... everyone will be happy, including the spectators who all laughed madly from one end to the other of these three acts.
It is built with a sure hand, a hilarious vaudeville, of extraordinary enthusiasm, of a continuous sparkle of wit, humour and fantasy, a joyful piece, carried to perfection".
[8] The piece has been neglected since Feydeau's death, and his biographer Leonard Pronko writes that it showed signs that the playwright's genius was nearing exhaustion,[9] Gidel comments that the play attempts, not wholly successfully, to combine farce with a satirical depiction of the manners of a small spa town.
