Comedy

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Comedy

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Comedy

• The word comedy comes from the Greek word
  Komos, or merrymaking, always part of the the
  Dionysian ritual.
• Comedies were popular during the Greeces Golden
  Age of drama (5th Century BCE).
• These old comedies relied largely on witty
  language and characters their point was to
  satirize something in society.
• Aristophanes, of course, is the well-known master
  of Old Comedy in ancient Greece Lysistrata,
  Birds, Frogs, Peace, Clouds, Wasps. All poke fun
  at war, peace, politicians, people and society.
• But Aristophanes is also credited with pioneering
  a transition period, Middle Comedy, between Old
  and New.

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Comedy

• The playwright Menander (342-291 BCE) is credited
  with creating New Comedy, which is based on the
  bizarre situations incited by human love.
• This particular form of comedy relies more on
  situational plot, stock characters, and visual
  humor, rather than on wit and complex ideas.
• The goal of new comedy was to amuse, not to
  instruct. In these, as many comedies, all
  difficulties ended in marriage. (Of course,
  often, this is where difficulties actually
  begin!)

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Comedy

• Stock characters in New Comedy include eager
  young lovers, coquettes, indignant fathers,
  jealous husbands, pompous asses, gullible
  victims, tricky servants, go-betweens, greedy
  con-men, and the like.
• These two basic forms of comedy moved through the
  ages, adapting to tastes and moral restraints,
  which as today comedy always strives to
  circumvent through limber use of pun,
  double-entendre, and mock.
• Bawdy comedy was alive and well in the supposedly
  pious middle ages, in the form of fabliaux and
  mimes and farcical plays.

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High and Low Comedy

• Comedy is often separated into two classes High
  and Low, which correlate in theory to Old and New
  Comedy
• High Comedy Words, wit and sophisticated
  characters and ideas are used to reveal
  ridiculous or destructive traits of human nature.
  Character and internal conflict march the mostly
  dynamic plots forward.
• Low Comedy Unruly plot, farce, bawdy jokes,
  sight gags, slapstick and stock characters reveal
  absurd aspects of human life. Often the purpose
  is sheer stupid fun as we laugh ourselves silly
  at ourselves. The plot is random and full of
  situational gags.

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Commedia dellArte

• Commedia dellarte (professional comedy, an
  ironic name) derived from Roman farce and emerged
  in force in Italy in the mid-16th century, and
  flowered through the ages, taking Low Comedy to
  its most outrageous extremes. (Its opposite was
  the commedia erudita.)
• The performances were largely improvisational,
  and relied on physical humor, using props such as
  pies, water buckets, beds, ladders, and the
  double paddle, called a slap stick, and sight
  gags.

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Commedia dellArte

• Often the plot, full of ridiculous situations,
  was interrupted by iazzi, (lazioni actions) or
  comic business, jokes, and witty byplay performed
  (Harlequin or Arlecchino) or other of the zanni.
  (Pedrolino or Pierrot) These plots are
  completely episodic in nature, and mostly
  repetitively absurd.
• Typical scenarios included lecherous old men,
  fools, young lovers, comic servants (zanni)
  braggarts, prudes, cuckolds and pundits.

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Commedia dellArte

• The actors playing these stock characters
  generally wore masks (except for the humble and
  sympathetic Pierrot) and the performances were
  rife with the obnoxious and obscene, full of
  vulgar visual jokes and farce.
• Medieval romance reflects these flat, stock
  characters, in their simplicity, and also in the
  seeming lack of depth of the love itself.

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Romantic Comedy

• Romantic comedy emerges from the middle ages as a
  parody of romance literature of the middle ages
  the word Romantic is a derivative of romance.
• Romantic comedies in the Renaissance, conversely,
  derive from New Comedy, and blend in elements of
  medieval romances.
• Conventions include Stock characters from Old
  Comedy blocking agents (those preventing the
  lovers from marrying) choric figures (detached
  figure who comments on the ridiculous situations)
  go-betweens (who try to defy the blocking agent)
  and all difficulties end in marriage.

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Romantic Comedy

• Romantic comedies follow a dynamic plot sequence,
  common to high comedy, although problems or
  complications, are often created whimsically and
  solved abruptly.
• Note This is the inverse pattern of tragedy at
  the climax of rising action in a comedy, it seems
  as if all is lost to the lovers in tragedy, it
  seems briefly as if the hero will reach his or
  her goal.
• Characters in Renaissance comedy, as in New
  Comedy, tend to be well-developed, and erudite
  In Shakespeare, notably, the character of
  Rosalind in As You Like It and Beatrice and
  Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing, and Alceste
  in Molières, The Misanthrope.

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Romantic Comedy

• Many of Shakespeare comedies contain elements of
  medieval romance. Tokens of Medieval romance are
  evident in the presence of a green world where
  magic solves the problems of the lovers. (As You
  Like It Midsummer Nights Dream) In medieval
  romances, the quest often involves encounters
  with magical or mystical places and beings.
• Some of Shakespeares plays in themselves are
  called romances, rather than comedies, due to the
  healing nature of the green world The Tempest
  The Winters Tale, As You Like It, Cymbeline, and
  Pericles. In these plays, the theme of love and
  its foibles is secondary to redemption and
  forgiveness.
• Shakespeares romance plays use magic, the
  supernatural, and the idea of a journey to an
  unknown and mystical place where wounds are
  healed or the spiritual answer to a profound
  question is discovered.

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Romantic Comedy

• The connections to fertility ritual is also a
  subtext in medieval romance.
• The wedding festival is victory of spring over
  winter, renewal of humanity, and of the earth.
• Generally, Renaissance romantic comedies, for
  their sophistication, are placed in the High
  Comedy category, especially those of Shakespeare.
  The characters who are mocked, are generally,
  static, and these resemble Low Comedy figures.

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Comedy of Manners

• Comedy of Manners is a term that is generally
  applied to Restoration Comedy and Neoclassical
  Comedy both forms existing in the
  post-Renaissance world of England and France.
  (Molière, William Congreve, Oliver Goldsmith,
  Richard Sheridan, William Wycherley).
• These plays include elements of Romantic comedy
  and satire. They tend to mock the relations and
  intrigues of people in the upper classes, rely
  largely on words and wit, and are often
  sophisticated and refined.

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A comedy of errors Definition

• Often a play
• Tone is light, satirical and farcical
• Involves cases of mistaken ID
• Usually has a positive resolution for everyone

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Comedy

• Comedy has the power to take fear and nobility
  out of the object opposed, and in doing so,
  functionally diffuses tension.
• This allows humans to critically view what might
  be unbearable, or merely uncomfortable, and find
  solutions, comfort, or solace in situations that
  could otherwise be unfathomably heinous or merely
  humiliating.
• Opposing forces and culturally different enemies
  can find common ground in laughter.
• And mostly, comedy gives us the uncanny ability
  to humbly see fault within ourselves, and to
  change accordingly, without need for defensive
  repercussions.