Un fil à la patte

The play depicts the frantic efforts of a young man-about-town to break his ties to his mistress as he prepares to marry into the aristocracy.

[2] Un fil à la patte opened at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal on 9 January 1894, and ran for 129 performances.

Her lover, Fernand de Bois-d'Enghien, is engaged to be married to Viviane, daughter of the Baroness Duverger, but is too cowardly to break the news to Lucette.

They have been sent anonymously by Lucette's admirer General Irrigua, a South American exile, but Bouzin has surreptitiously planted his business card in the bouquet.

The concierge comes up the stairs with policemen looking for a man in his underclothes, and Bouzin flees as Viviane arrives, to the surprise of Bois-d'Enghien.

The authors of Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique said that they despaired of conveying to their readers how funny the piece was.

[6] In Le Figaro Henry Fouquier took mild exception to jokes about a minor character's bad breath, but concluded, "I came out dizzy, shaking with laughter" at the sheer youthful delight of the piece, which gave "the rare and charming impression" that the author had enjoyed himself writing the play as much as the audience had enjoyed watching it.

[8] The Paris correspondent of the London paper The Era reported that the play "sent us away tipsy with laughing … a side-splitting piece whose broad fun renders criticism superfluous".

[4] During Feydeau's lifetime the play was revived in Paris, at the Théâtre Antoine in 1911, with Marcel Simon as Bois-d'Enghien, Armande Cassive as Lucette and M Sulhac as Bouzin.

[10] Feydeau's work underwent years of neglect after his death, and Un fil à la patte was not given a major revival in Paris until 1961, when Jacques Charon directed it for the Comédie-Française.

[11][n 2] Since then there have been at least 24 new productions in Paris, Brussels and French provincial cities, under directors including Jérôme Deschamps, Pierre Mondy and Francis Perrin.