Farce

Farce, form of popular comedy in which laughter is raised by horseplay and bodily assault in contrived and highly improbable situations. It must, however, retain its hold on humanity, even if only in depicting the grosser faults of mankind, otherwise it degenerates into burlesque. It deals with the inherent stupidity of man at odds with his environment, and originated in the great submerged stream of folk-drama, of which few written records remain. It stands at the beginning of classical drama (see FABULA 1: ATELLANA) as well as of modern European drama, and was especially popular in France in the later Middle Ages. Among the many medieval farces that were long current, the greater part no doubt transmitted orally, the best known is Maître Pierre Pathelin (c.1470), the portrait of a rascally lawyer. Traditional farce survived in France until well into the 17th century, particularly in the provinces; it died out in Paris in the 1640s with the disappearance of the gifted trio of farce-players Turlupin, Gros-Guillaume, and Gaultier-Garguille. In his early career as an actor Molière played in farce, and its tradition exercised a great influence on his career as a dramatist. There were elements of farce in early English biblical plays, and farcical interludes were later written by scholars for production in schools and other places, but as in Italy and Germany the influence of the French farce was paramount in England, culminating in the works of John Heywood.

In the 18th and 19th centuries short one-act farces were popular on the English and American stages, usually as part of a bill which also included a five-act tragedy. They were ephemeral productions, though some of them achieved a great success, mainly through the acting of some particular comedian. In modern usage the word farce is applied to a full-length play dealing with some absurd situation, generally based on extra-marital adventures—hence ‘bedroom farce’. An early exponent of modern farce in England was Pinero, several of whose early plays in this genre have been successfully revived. A full-length farce which still holds the stage is Charley's Aunt (1892) by Brandon Thomas. In the 1920s and early 1930s there was a series of successful farces at the Aldwych Theatre, mostly written by Ben Travers, and in the 1950s and 1960s a similar series was produced by Brian Rix at the Whitehall. Thanks to its robust character, farce survives translation better than comedy, as is shown by the recent success in England of the farces of Feydeau, some of the best of their kind.