Comedy

In a modern sense, comedy refers to any discourse or work generally intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, television, film, stand-up comedy, or any other medium of entertainment. The origins of the term are found in Ancient Greece. In the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance which pits two groups or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a “Society of Youth” and a “Society of the Old”. A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth is understood to be constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to take recourse in ruses which engender very dramatic irony which provokes laughter.

Satire and political satire use comedy to portray persons or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of their humor. Parody subverts popular genres and forms, critiquing those forms without necessarily condemning them.

Other forms of comedy include screwball comedy, which derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters, and black comedy, which is characterized by a form of humor that includes darker aspects of human behavior or human nature. Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways. A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love.

History

Beginnings of the comedy in the Greco-Roman antiquity
The comedy and the tragedy, whose representation back to the 6th century BC. AD and 5th century BC. AD, have a religious origin, related to the cult of Dionysus.

“As this worship brought in turn funeral sacrifices or happy solemnities to celebrate the mourning of winter or the brilliant awakening of spring. One could see in turn the sacred ceremony turn into the drama of tears or the tragedy of joy. At the revival, happy processions of drunken villains and disguised in Pans and Satyrs led their religious carnival through the village, and used the license of the festival, to interrupt their hymns of satirical apostrophes addressed to the crowd. Little by little these interludes of lazzis take on a more dramatic form; the jokers make the satire more pungent, by playing the characters they attacked: this entertainment turns into scenes of caricature. This was the birthplace of Comedy. ”

These performances take place at parties organized by the State. Twice a year, they gather citizens around a competition between three authors selected in advance. During the three days of ceremonies, these represent several pieces each. Thus, the public attends about fifteen performances, from morning to dusk. This way of seeing theater is quite different from the one we have today, except for certain festivals.

The location of these representations is an open-air building, able to accommodate a large audience, occupying the stands. In front of him is the scene, above which a balcony can see the gods appear. There is also an orchestra pit, a circular space in which there is an altar dedicated to Dionysus and reserved for the choir (therefore located both “with” the actors, and separated from them).

The choir is composed of a certain number of choristers, who take charge of the lyrical part of the show (the song). He was accompanied at the beginning of an actor (the protagonist) then we added two others: the deuteragonist and the tritagonist. With the evolution of the theater, the lyrical part has diminished, in favor of dialogue.

At the time, all the roles are held by men, wearing masks: the face of the actor does not express a nuanced psychology and the nuances of the emotion pass by the tone and the gestures. The actors wear colorful tunics, the color to help the audience to distinguish the different roles. The Greek plays are composed of a certain number of definite “moments”: a prologue, then the entrance of the choir (“parodos”), then episodes cut by chants of the choir, finally the exit of the choir (“exodos”).).

Beginnings of literature in Comedy
By Aesop’s fables denotes a set of fables in prose attributed to Aesop, writer Greek who lived in the late 7th and the beginning of the 6th century BC. AD. He was from Thrace, near the Black Sea.

The fables of Aesop were prose and concise, La Fontaine put some in verse as Phèdre, Avianus and Charles Perrault, to name only the most famous fabulists.

Athenian comedy in the age of Pericles
In the 5th century BC. During the century of Pericles, in full Athenian democracy, the poet Cratinos created the Old Comedy as an institution of political opposition. Thus, with the Old Comedy, the theater is transformed into a tribune.

If we have not preserved anything of Cratinos, Phrynichos the Comic, Eupolis, Pherecrates, Plato the comic, Crates, Phormis and so many others, on the other hand we have eleven pieces of Aristophanes which can give us a sufficient idea of this fantastic drama full of imagination and poetry.

These pieces embrace such a variety of objects and mingle so strongly with the events of the time that, perhaps even better than the history of Thucydides, they make us aware of the situation of Athens at that time. ”

But as the century of Pericles comes to an end, Athenian freedom and the Old Comedy tend to disappear. Excluded from politics, condemned to abstain from personalities, she seeks in the private life a new matter, and attaches to the general satire of the passions, the crossings and the humors of the humans. However, this metamorphosis is not done in a day. Between the Old Comedy and the New Comedy there was an indecisive period of transition, that of Antiphane, Eubulos, Alexis, which was called the Medium Comedy, where, like the Sicilian scene, we have fun to disguise the episodes of mythology.have remained in the popular comedy of Italy (which will be found later in the Commedia dell’arte)

New comedy under the Macedonian monarchy
The new comedy (also referred to as Nea) begins in the second half of the i5th century BC. AD. It was scarcely until the Macedonian monarchy that a great poet, Menander, finally brought out of these sketches the true comedy of manners and character, as we still conceive it today.

Diphile and Philemon were, with Menander, the principal authors of the Comedie Nouvelle.

The Doric comedy
This other kind of Greek comedy developed in various Dorian cities, such as Megara, Sparta… The Dorian comedy was represented by three poets, Epicharme, Phormis and Dinoloque. It was not democratic, like the Athenian comedy: protected by two kings, Gelon and Hieron, it remained alien to that spirit of political satire that distinguishes the Old Comedy of Athens. It retained, with a character of philosophical gravity, the respect of the powerful; and philosophical discussions were very important.

The Roman comedy
As in Athens, the Roman theater has a religious dimension: the representations are related to the cult of Bacchus. As in Athens as well, the political dimension is present, since the theater is played during the Games, or during important ceremonies bringing together the people. Singing, dancing, music still accompany the text – the theater is a “total show”.

The accessories are more numerous than in the Greek theater: the stage curtain appears, the costumes are sometimes sumptuous, the machinery grows. Masks are always present.

On the stage, no “decor” in the modern sense: a few doors, meaning a house or a palace, and sometimes a machinery to reveal a god reciting a tirade – hence the expression “deus ex machina”.

In the Roman Empire, the farce, the Atellane, performed by masked actors, who enjoyed popular favor and were at the source of the Commedia dell’arte (which makes the masks very similar to the current masks of the Commedia dell’arte), existed before the New Athenian Comedy was translated to its use. And moreover, the comedy devoted to the painting of Roman manners (comoedia togata, played in toga) never reached the success of the atellane.

Greek comedy (New Athenian Comedy) was brought by Livius Andronicus (280 BC – 204). The enlightened population wanted nothing more than Greek plays. The new comedy is exported to Rome, where it will be adapted to the iii th century as the comedia palliata (in which the actors wear the Greek dress, the pallium) and extensively taken up by Plautus and Terence. Indeed, all the pieces we kept from Plaute and Terence (including Molière has sometimes been inspired) are only translations of Greek comedies.

Since the dictatorship of Sylla (which began in December 82 BC), Atellane was replaced by Mime. The comedies of Plautus did not cease being played throughout the Empire until the invasion of the Germans.

Thus, comedy as a theatrical genre developed in Europe in Greco – Roman antiquity, where it shared with tragedy the theaters built in the Roman Empire.

The Roman comedy, literature
From Greece, the fable passes to Rome. Horace proposes a remarkable adaptation of the Town Rat and the Field Rat (Satires, II) that some critics consider superior to the version of Jean de La Fontaine. He will be followed by Phaedrus who, like Aesop, was born in Thrace and was a slave before being freed by Augustus. We owe him six books of fables, the first of which opens with The Wolf and the Lamb. With this collection entirely written in verse, Phèdre will truly make the fable a poetic genre in its own right. He is not content to adapt Aesop in Latin, but is also original: of the 126 fables in his collection, less than half are directly borrowed from Aesop. Even if these fables do not attract him glory during his lifetime, Phèdre will emulate.

The poet Babrius, a Hellenized Roman contemporary with Phaedrus, rewrites the esopic fables in Greek and puts them in verse. He is known from two collections, totaling 123 fables.

The vogue of the fable grows in the Greco-Roman world. There are various references to fables in the Greek author Lucien de Samosate (120-180), especially that of the dancing monkeys, which plays on the opposition between the innate and the acquired, common theme to many fables, including at La Fontaine and Florian 6. In the i5th century, the Roman poet Avianus allowed 42 mostly adaptations of Phaedra, but many who are not attested elsewhere are well constructed. His contemporary, the Greek Aphthonios left a collection of 40 fables in prose.

Through the Latin sector, the fables of Aesop will pass in the Middle Ages and inspire countless successors.

The comedy in the Middle Ages in Europe
After the collapse of ancient culture, the Middle Ages, which ignores the word “comedy,” reinvents many forms of comic theater. The theater is played in the street (street theater), in the form of mysteries, fables, jokes, soties or even mime. Some of these genres are more or less inspired by survivals of ancient genres such as atellan.

Indeed, the tradition of jugglers and the taste of parodic entertainment among clerics are expressed in the Middle Ages in a wide variety of pieces of satirical and didactic character:

devils, which are included in the religious mysteries

the jokes, which are short pieces featuring popular types of daily life (the peasant, the woman, the priest, the noble, etc.) and a simple situation on the background of traditional morals
the soties (which appear to 15th and 16th centuries), focused on the “fool” (a kind of clown before its time) and who use all the freedoms of satire.

From the 12th century, the bourgeoisie (inhabitants of the town), has its own literature, real satire social before the letter. It is essentially mischievous, picturesque, but most often realistic. We still essentially fables (Estula, The Greyhound and the Serpent, The Three Blind Compiègne), the Reynard the Fox and, later, farces (The Farce of Master Pathelin, 15th century).

In the 13th century, the theater plays on the village green or town. The spectators are “bourgeois” (inhabitants of the borough), while the courts of the lords prefer the shows of tournaments, ballets, etc.

In the 14th century and 15th century, the shows become chargeable. As a result, the theater is more and more often played in closed spaces rather than in the main square. Few sets are used in the Middle Ages: we are sometimes satisfied with signs indicating the place. But machineries are developing, in order to create “special effects”.

Always in the Middle Ages, the role of Bouffon is to make people laugh: they entertain, use insolence and are sometimes advisers; the best known are the fools of kings and lords. Besides, the 15th century, François I er, created a crazy school.

Comedy in France under Humanism
In the 15th century, Rabelais wrote Gargantua becoming the first author to have used the burlesque in his works. His major works, such as Pantagruel (1532) and Gargantua (1534), both chronicles, tales with their characters of giants, the hero-comic parody, the epic and the romance of chivalry, but which prefigure also the realistic, satirical and philosophical novel, are considered as one of the first forms of themodern novel.

In the years 1456-1460 8 released one of the rare comedy pieces of the time The Farce of Master Pathelin. Always the 15th century appears the Morality, featuring allegorical figures representing the vices and virtues of men and society’s flaws

At the 16th century, scholars create the humanistic comedy, to oppose the medieval tradition of stuffing and return to the roots of Latin comedy. Humanistic comedies are the first “regular comedies” in the history of French theater. This name means comedies composed in imitation of the Roman comedy and which respect the formal rules, as opposed to jokes, sotties, moralitiesand other theatrical games of the time designated by the same term of “comedy”, which included in the current vocabulary all happy ending performances (and which will all be prohibited under this name by edict of the Parliament of Paris from 1588 to 1594).

Moreover, from the mixture of Stuffing with Morality is born Sottie, which, under the reign of Louis XII in particular, recalls the Old Athenian Comedy, at least for malice and daring to say it all.

The dark comedy in the decline in France from the middle of the 16th century
In the middle of the 16th century, the mystery (that is to say, the most prestigious theatrical genre) are prohibited. Indeed, the Church now believes that faith must be the business of the learned, not the actors (the theater is blacklisted by the Church who accuses him of lying about reality). Thus, despite some resistance, the theater sinks into decline. It will be necessary to wait for a redefinition of this art so that it takes again consistency.

Comedy in Europe under the Renaissance
During the Renaissance, writers from all over Europe wanted to return to the sources of the theater and appropriate Latin comedy. The term “comedy” is a comedy inspired by Latin comedy, and which respects its formal rules, while opposing various forms of medieval comedies.

In the 15th century (in Italy), the first models appeared in the comedy “regular”, followed the 16th century by the Aretino, Machiavelli (Mandrake) and Trissino. Very soon, the Italian comedy stands out, with Giordano Bruno (the Chandelier) and Ruzzante, who dials in Paduan dialect popular scenes and finds his style in the improvisation of the commedia dell’arte.

Italian comedy
Italian comedy, the 16th century, sees appearing the commedia dell’arte that supplants regular comedy; its influence will be considerable on the evolution of theatrical techniques.

Shakespearean and Elizabethan comedy
In England at the end of the 16th century, the comedy Elizabethan, fed observations, is dominated by Shakespeare, but it is also successful in Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker.

The Elizabethan Comedy had a very different meaning from modern comedy. A comedy of Shakespeare is one that has a happy ending, usually involving marriages between unmarried characters, and a tone and style that is lighter than other parts of Shakespeare.

The Spanish comedy
The Spanish Golden Age (Siglo de Oro in Spanish) is the cultural influence period of Spain in Europe the 16th to the 17th century. It is a period of great literary and artistic vitality in Spain and the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America
The Spanish comedy of the end of the 16th century (mainly comedia), implements all kinds of intrigue with Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, Moreto y Cabaña, Fernando de Rojas, and opens with Pedro de Alarcón, the “comedy of character”, which will directly inspire Pierre Corneille (with the Liar in 1652).

Comedy in Spain seeks to captivate the imagination by the romantic interest of the plot, rather than the truth of the human heart. The character disappears and is absorbed in the dominant passion. Imagination prevails and, also, passion.

The theater is uneasy about the plausibility of the novel and the truth of the character. A young love rider and the young doña of whom he is in love are staged; they are separated by all sorts of obstacles, inflexible parents, a jealous guardian, fierce rivals, the distance of the ranks; through the incidents of a complicated intrigue, we follow with curious interest the ruses and efforts by which the two lovers strive to join.

Considered by many to be the greatest work written in Spanish, Don Quixote is one of the first novels published in Europe. This novel, like the world in which its author lives, Miguel de Cervantes, is on the border of the Middle Ages and modern times. The second volume is published in 1615, a year before the death of the author. Don Quixote is both a medieval novel – a chivalric novel – and a novel from the then nascent era. The book is a parody of medieval manners and the chivalrous ideal and a critique of the social structures of a rigid Spanish society lived as absurd. Don Quixote is an important milestone in literary history, and the interpretations we give are multiple, pure comic, social satire, political analysis.

Contemporary Cervantes, the playwright Lope de Vegais famous for its dramas, especially those based on the country’s history. In the hundreds of plays he wrote, Lope de Vega adopted, like Cervantes, a comic approach, transforming for example a conventional moral play into a humorous and cynical work. His main goal is to distract his audience. The mixture he makes of moral elements, comedy, drama, and popular genius, makes him a cousin of Shakespeare, to whom he is often compared, and of which he is the contemporary. As a critic of society, Lope de Vega attacks, also like Cervantes, many of the old institutions of the country, including aristocracy, chivalry, rigidity of manners… These two writers constitute an artistic alternative to the asceticism of a Francisco Zurbarán. century, Lope de Vega’s ” cloak and sword ” pieces mixing adventures, romantic intrigues and comedy influence his literary heir, Pedro Calderón de la Barca.

Comedy in England in the 17th century

Charles II enjoyed the comedies of the Restoration.
The comedy of the Restoration refers to the kind of comedies written and performed since the English Restoration (1660) until the beginning of the 18th century. After the ban on public theatrical performances imposed for 18 years by the Puritan regime of Cromwell, the reopening of theaters in 1660 marks the rebirth of English theater. If the beginning of this period is perfectly defined by the accession to the throne of Charles II, its end date is rather vague. It nevertheless far exceeds the death of Charles IIin 1685, which marks the strict sense the end of the Restoration, and encroaches on the reigns of Jacques II to William III and even of Anne I re.

Renewal of the Comedy in France in the 17th century

Implementation of classical theater in the early 17th century
In France, at the beginning of the 17th century appears several novelties. Indeed, the profession of comedian, even if it is despised by the Church and a part of the opinion, fascinates more and more. And women can finally come on stage.

In 1629 appears Melite of Pierre Corneille, he called in the first edition of “comic piece” and not comedy, new form of “romantic comedy” based on heartbreak heart and a new conception of theatrical dialogue that he will himself describe thirty years later as the “conversation of honest people,” far from the comic forms then known as farce and the Italian comedy.

In 1630, the theater is recognized as an official art by Richelieu. And the rule of three units is recommended in 1630 in the Letter to the drama of John Chaplain, adviser to Cardinal Richelieu. Regenting much of the theatrical language of the time, they are characteristic of what was later called classical theater. They are introduced in 1634 in the masterpiece of Jean de Mairet, Sophonisbe.

From around 1640 to 1656, the comedy of cloak and sword is in vogue in France. It will be replaced by gallant tragi-comedy.

The Abbot of Aubignac plays an important role, because in The Practice of the Theater 14 in 1657 he analyzes the ancient theater and the contemporary theater and draws principles which constitute the bases of the classical theater with the rule of the three units: the rule of decorum, which obliges to represent on stage only that which will not shock the public.

In this century dominated by classicism, the distinction between theatrical genres is clear: tragedy and comedy have their own characteristics, which an author must respect (there are however some forms “mixed”: The Cid, Pierre Corneille, is thus a tragicomedy). As for tragedy, French classical comedy must obey the rule of three units.

The comedy, Louis XIV
In the 17th century, in the King’s Court Louis XIV who acts as patron, Molière invented with Jean-Baptiste Lully ‘s comedy-ballet in 1661, and he frequently uses the burlesque in the theater from 1662 in The School for Wives.

Even if the clergy is in its majority hostile to the theater, and considers that the actors must be excommunicated, Corneille and Molière manage to impose themselves. Corneille turned to the writing of tragedy, while Molière (despite his preference for tragedy) turned to writing comedy; unless it is Corneille who has written everything in place of Molière (see the fatherhood of the works of Molière).

La France, outstripped by Italy and Spain in its literary renaissance begins by taking them as models. This is what Molière does at first, before differentiating himself (“Molière himself borrows a long time from the scenes of Italian and Spanish the canvas and characters of his first comedies, he begins by copying foreign models, before becoming himself original “).

After having been inspired by the farce and the Commedia dell’arte, (which will be found in the flying doctor), Molière reinvents the Comédie de caractère, in The School of Women in 1662 (we will find the Comedy of character in George Dandin or the confused Mari, The Misanthrope, the Miser…), and reinvents the Comedy of mores in Doctor in spite of himself, in 1666. So, Molière has made comedy theater an art in its own right and no longer as a sub-genre compared to Tragedy.

The romantic comedy
The Fables of La Fontaine continue a medieval French tradition, comic stories and satire social mores, whose actors are animal personifications, as the Roman Renart where we find the anecdote of the ” Raven and Fox ” with morals set in adage, or like Marie de France where we find the first version of the ” Wolf and the Lamb “.

La Fontaine has also done a work of translation and adaptation of ancient texts, like the Fables of Aesop (for example ” The Cicada and the Ant “), Phèdre, Abstémius, but also texts of Horace, of Livy (“the limbs and the stomach”), apocryphal letters of Hippocrates (“Democritus and the Abderitians”), and many others, they constitute a sum of classical Latin and Greek culture, and even open in the second collection in the Indian tradition.

Influence throughout Europe to the 18th century
The comedies of manners and character, imposed by Molière, served as a model throughout Europe, even to English authors, who abandoned the truculence and buffoonery of the Elizabethan theater for William Congreve ‘s comedies, and also influenced the whole theater. European comic during part of the 18th century (Moratín, in Spain; Carlo Goldoni in Italy).

Comedy in France in the 18th century
In the 18th century in France appears Copyright theater, like that of Marivaux and Beaumarchais. In the Enlightenment, the ” units “, recognized as essential to the 17th century as they allowed (according to Boileau, among others) to give greater verisimilitude to the parts appear gradually as shackles whose authors seek to undo. In addition, the Enlightenment philosophers are fiercely opposed to the clergy and its authoritarian attitude towards the theater.. The “free spirits” believe that the theater is not only an innocent entertainment, but also an educational means: Voltaire and Diderot support the idea that the representation of vices and virtues can “enlighten” men. This century of Enlightenment sees satire (Alain René Lesage in France, Sheridan in England) and the analysis of feelings (Marivaux).

In Marivaux, the characters are no longer comic types or tragic heroes, but individuals struggling with questions about their identity. Thus, in several comedies (eg Double Inconstancy), the characters hide their identity to their promised, taking the costume of their valet (or their next). Everyone wants to know his promise in a masked way – but he himself also discovered in this game masks. The language of Marivaux retranscribes the moments of seduction between the heroes, and the interrogations of the characters on their own feelings: it is the ” marivaudage “.

This Age of Enlightenment, which plays willingly with emotion and pathos, creates, with Nivelle de La Chaussée, the comedy “tearful”, or sentimental and romantic comedy with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, while Denis Diderot salutes in the comedy ” Serious “, incarnated by Michel Jean Sedaine, a counterpart to the bourgeois drama.

Beaumarchais, with The Barber of Seville or The Marriage of Figaro, gives the character of the valet a crucial importance. The valet was already an important personage before (at Molière for example, with Scapin, Sganarelle, etc.), but he is at Beaumarchais carrying claims of justice and social equality. Beaumarchais is thus a precursor of the French Revolution and the freedom of opinion thus summarized in his play Le Mariage de Figaro: “Without the freedom to blame, there is no flattering praise. ” He will have a tribute in the film Beaumarchais, the insolent (withFabrice Luchini).

The theater of the fair (combining improvised comedy and farce), inherited from the Italian theater and the Commedia dell’arte, is transformed into a comic opera (which itself also inherits Comédie-ballet).

Comedy in France in the 19th century
In the 19th century, the rules of the 17th century (units, propriety) are permanently abandoned. The authors of Romanticism want another theater. They want a type of piece capable of staging history and power, in a style that is no longer subject to propriety. Victor Hugo speaks of the units as a “cage” and provocatively declares: “I dislocated this great silly Alexandrian. ”

Alfred de Musset, another romantic author, is distinguished in that he gives up quickly enough to have his pieces represented. After the failure of The Venetian Night, he wrote dramas and comedies, in prose, mixing young people in love and grotesque and authoritarian old characters, in multiple sets, difficult to stage. The theater, with Musset, is made to be read (and imagined) more than to be seen.

At the beginning of 19th century, the mime and pantomime, and puppet (puppet) from the scene of the fair, are rebuilt and acquired its present form. Under the Second Empire, the theater of the fair makes a final transformation in vaudeville in the boulevard theater (in which there will be a tribute in the film The Children of Paradise). Faced with these non-literary repertoires of comic theater, the Comédie-Française, still very young, manages to impose respect for the standards of dramaturgywhich makes it symbolically become an important institution, guarantor of traditions.

The Russian Comedy Belle Epoque
The Russian theater Belle Epoque (from the end of 19th century to the beginning of 20th century) recourse to the comic scenes under “serious”. Thus in Chekhov’s plays the painting of a decaying society, with its gallery of pitiful characters, oscillates constantly between the grotesque and the tragic.

Comedy from the 20th century
Following the shock of the First World War and the rise of fascism in the first half of the 20th century, appears more tragedy (Cocteau, Jean Anouilh, Jean Giraudoux) that comedy and tragedy appears as of ancient myths.

Diversification genres in the theater
In the 20th century, the theater borrows various channels – that authors today still dig and diversifying.

Some parts continue in the vein of the comedy of manners, already present in the 17th century, and which saw renewed success at the end of the 19th century, with Georges Feydeau and Eugène Labiche (authors of vaudeville).

At the same time a theater of “subversion” appears: Alfred Jarry, with Ubu king, presents a piece made to shock (the first line is a resounding “Merdre!”). In a certain proximity to the Dada movement or surrealism, this theater rejects any psychology of characters to prefer a crude, almost abstract representation of man.

In full World War II, appears the theater of the absurd (Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett): by the ancient rewriting, the goal is to demolish the myths by taking the same heroes, the same themes and to degrade them, being able to pass from tragic register in the comic register. They question in their works the theatrical character, the kind of plays (Ionescothus affirms that “the comic is the other side of the tragic”), and the language itself. Shouts and seemingly meaningless replies follow each other to give a funny and frightening image of humanity. The scene often takes place in a climate of disaster but the comic mixes to overcome the absurd. The characters often have exaggerated reactions.

The boulevard theater, after the Boulevard du Crime was destroyed in 1862 (and that “thereafter, the theater encloses itself in buildings and only addresses a small elite”), becomes again the theater of street after the Second World War.

Literature Comedy
Marcel Proust, in In Search of Lost Time, which is not a comic novel in itself, uses different forms of comedy:

Comic character and gestures: M me Verdurin embodies the caricature of false friendliness, a parody of culture and distinction, and Madame de Cambremer…
Comic of situation: the grandfather of the Narrator wishes for his grandson a recommendation when he goes to cure in Balbec… without success… Mr. Legrandin uses various strategies to divert the conversation of the grandfather.
Comic of words: Zeugma: Madame Verdurin speaking to the familiar of the little clan in the tone of Christ…

New forms of comedy
In the 20th century, the comedy diversified into music (Musical), in film (Film Comic), in television, and in new theatrical forms (Sketch, Stand-up and new forms of improvisation).

Source from Wikipedia