La Puce à l'oreille

All the ingredients that made the master of the genre's reputation are here: burlesque situations and interlocking quiproquos, plus the doppelganger theme. With its formidable construction and incredible fantasy, it's "a firework set off over an anthill", as the critics of the time put it. The main object of the confusion to come is a parcel "inadvertently" opened by Mr. Chandebise's wife: suspenders sent from the Hôtel du Minet-Galant. Stung, Raymonde becomes convinced that she is being deceived and calls on her friend Lucienne to write a missive giving her husband a rendezvous in the hope of confusing him. But the accomplice is not to be pleased, as the handwritten letter falls into the hand of her own husband, who in turn thinks he's been outraged... They all end up at Le Minet-Galant, where the hotel waiter, Poche, is a look-alike of Raymonde's husband.
A troupe play par excellence, La Puce à l'oreille exploits more than ever ingenious stage resources: a "fire escape" and, above all, a clever stratagem that makes adulterous couples disappear at the slightest alert.