Essay on "Farce"

 Unit-II
Drama
“Farce”

Farce which is referred to as comedy of situation, is a humorous play on a trivial theme usually one that is familiar to the audience. The themes that are treated in farce include mistaken identity, elaborate misunderstanding, switched costume (men in women’s clothes) heroes forced under tables, misheard instructions, discoveries, disappearances and many such situations.

 Farce is not considered an intellectual drama because it does not appeal to the mind. It deals with physical situations and does not explore any serious idea. It presents physical activities that grow out of situations like the presence of something when something is not expected or the absence of something when something is expected.

Farce does not treat serious social issues. Sometimes it does not tell a full story or presents a logical plot. A good example is somebody walking and slipping on a banana peel and falling in an exaggerated manner. The main objective is to entertain by evoking laughter. It presents mainly mechanical actions to show that human life is mechanical, aggressive, and coincidental.

In the English drama that has best stood the test of time, farce is usually an episode in a more complex form of comedy—examples are the knockabout scenes in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and The Merry Wives of Windsor. The plays of the French playwright Georges Feydeau (1862–1921), relying in great part on sexual humour and innuendo, are true farce throughout, as is Brandon Thomas’ Charley’s Aunt, an American play of 1892 which has often been revived, and also some of the current plays of Tom Stoppard. Many of the movies by such comedians as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, W. C. Fields, the Marx brothers, and Woody Allen are excellent farce, as are the Monty Python films and television episodes.

1. Farce: Definition

A dramatic piece intended to make the audience laugh, and relying less on plot and character than on exaggerated, improbable situations. The humour in farce arises from coarse wit or horseplay. Farce merges into comedy.

2. The Beginnings

The word "Farce" developed from the Latin farcire, meaning "to stuff. Thus an expansion in the church liturgy was called a farce. Later, in France, farce meant any sort of extemporaneous addition in a play, especially comic jokes. In the late seventeenth century, the term was used in England to mean any short humorous play, distinguished from regular five-act comedy. The word refers to any play which evokes laughter by such device of low comedy as physical buffoonery, rough wit, the creation of ridiculous situations, and which is little concerned with subtlety of characterization or probability of plot.

3. Features of a Farce

●       Farce is a lowbrow comedy.

●       There is exaggerated physical action and slapstick.

●       The characters are exaggerated types, rather than true to life.

●       It is full of absurd situations and improbable actions.

●       There are several surprises and disclosures in a farce.

●       Character and dialogue are subservient to plot and situation.

●       The plot is complex and intricate.

4. Examples of Farce

Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors is almost entirely farcical, but many plays which are not farces, such as Twelfth Night, contain farcical elements, e.g., the mock duel between Viola and Sir Andrew. The term farce or force comedy is also used for the plays like Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest for the exaggerated character types and ludicrous situations. Farce is also the frequent comic tactic in the theatre of the absurd. The best example of a farce is the English playwright Brandon Thomas's Charley's Aunt (1892)