Occupe-toi d'Amélie!

In 1907 the play he wrote immediately before Occupe-toi d'Amélie, La Puce à l'oreille (A Flea in Her Ear), had been enthusiastically received by critics and public, but the expected long run was curtailed after 86 performances when one of the leading actors died suddenly.

Amélie Pochet, a high-class cocotte, maintains a Paris apartment in which members of her family also live: her father, a former policeman, and her younger brother Adonis, whom she employs as an attendant.

This suits Marcel, who means to pass Amélie off as his fiancée to fool his godfather Van Putzeboom, who holds a huge sum in trust for him, to be handed over when he marries.

They are surprised by the arrival of the Countess of Premilly, who is Marcel's lover, and was Amélie's employer before the latter exchanged the role of lady's maid for that of a cocotte.

He tells them that to fool Van Putzeboom into handing over the trust money, Amélie and Marcel should go through a bogus marriage ceremony to be conducted by an actor friend.

The ceremony takes place at the town hall, after which Étienne reveals that the "fake" mayor was in fact the genuine one, and that Amélie and Marcel are now married.

[8] The reviewers were enthusiastic; in Le Figaro, Emmanuel Arène said: In Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique Edmond Stoullig wrote: A production directed by Jean-Louis Barrault at the Théâtre Marigny, Paris in 1948, starring his wife Madeleine Renaud marked the start of the revival of interest in Feydeau's plays, neglected since his death in 1921.