Un fil à la patte

In 1894, the directors of the Palais-Royal commissioned a new play from Feydeau: Un fil à la patte, a high point of his repertoire.

The plot is simple: Bois-d’Enghien cannot bring himself to tell his mistress Lucette, a café-concert singer, that he is about to marry a young heiress, Viviane Duverger. General Irrigua, madly in love with the singer, flies into a rage on learning that Lucette has a lover and is determined to kill him. Bois-d’Enghien makes him believe that Bouzin, a notary’s clerk and failed composer, is the lover in question, and manages to avert a cascade of events and misunderstandings that threaten to expose his scheme. But Bois-d’Enghien’s future mother-in-law asks Lucette to come and sing at the party she is organizing for her daughter’s wedding — a party where everyone ends up together…

An implacable comic machine is then set in motion, driven by a host of eccentric and off-kilter characters, in the purest tradition of vaudeville, which Feydeau pushes to new heights of farcical brilliance: the comedy reaches its peak.

A fine copy.

Provenance: Marcel Silvain; Jacques Crépineau, with bookplate.