Chat en poche is a comedy in three acts by Georges Feydeau

Georges Feydeau

Georges Feydeau was a French playwright of the era known as the Belle Époque. He is remembered for his many lively farces.-Biography:Georges Feydeau was born in Paris, the son of novelist Ernest-Aimé Feydeau and Léocadie Bogaslawa Zalewska. At the age of twenty, Feydeau wrote his first comic...

 which was performed for the first time on the 19 September 1892 at the Théâtre Déjazet

Théâtre Déjazet

The Théâtre Dejazet is a theatre on the boulevard du Temple in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris. It was originally founded in 1770 by Comte d'Artois who later was crowned Charles X, but it was then closed down and not reopened until 1851...

. Modern times commentators have remarked that even if this early play was still influenced by Eugène Marin Labiche

Eugène Marin Labiche

Eugène Marin Labiche was a French dramatist.-Biography:He was born into a bourgeois family and studied law. At the age of twenty, he contributed a short story to Chérubin magazine, entitled Les plus belles sont les plus fausses. A few others followed , but failed to catch the attention of the...

, this portrayal of a small egoistic Bourgeois society is characteristic of Feydeau.

Plot summary

Pacarel made his wealth in the sugar industry and wants to premiere an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 composed by his daughter, who "rewrote Faust

Faust (opera)

Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...

after Gounod

Charles Gounod

Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

". To fulfill this objective, he asks his friend Dufausset who lives in Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

 to engage Dujeton, a well known Tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 from the Bordeaux Opera

Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux

Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, is a Theatre in Bordeaux, France, first inaugurated on 17 April 1780. It was in this theatre that the ballet La Fille Mal Gardée premiered in 1789, and where a young Marius Petipa staged some of his first ballets....

. But instead of Dujeton, it's the son of Dufausset who comes. He is coming in Paris to study the Judiciary

Judiciary

The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Pacarel mistakes him for Dujeton and signs a contract with him, leading to a series of misunderstandings.

Roles

• Pacarel
• Dufausset
• Marthe, wife of Pacarel
• Julie, daughter of Pacarel
• Landernau, Physician
  Physician
  A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
  
  
• Amandine, wife of Landernau
• Lanoix de Vaux
• Tiburce, valet
• a mute female servant