Farce- Primary Sources

Due to the expansive nature of farce in drama, it was hard to narrow down the list of primary sources that I could use to accurately represent the subgenre and its evolution through time. Since one of the most intriguing aspects of farce is the history of rejection and acceptance from literary critics throughout its existence, I've decided to select farcical plays from its rise in popularity in the 17th and 18th century, as well as the early and late 20th centuries. The plays I've selected are France, from which the word "farce" originated, England,  the next country to adopt the farcical tradition, and America, the more contemporary version of the subgenre.

    The earlier French plays I have examined, The Lying Valet by David Garrick (1774) The Cheats of Scapin by Thomas Otway (1677) are incredibly interesting since the primary source material are photocopies of the original manuscripts. Despite Farce being a visual experience due to its nature of physical humor and ridiculous situations, the older plays have far less stage directions than the contemporary versions. This coincides with some more of the secondary research that I have done that associates the origins of comedic plays--especially those with "vulgar humor" with more improvisation than written and planned actions. Linking these two aspects of secondary and primary research together has provided another possible answer to literary critic's tendency to denounce, or what Peter Holland calls "an apologetic titling."

Despite finding secondary sources that attribute farce's comical structure towards revealing a deeper sense of political awareness, original farces were mainly escapist and made just to make the audience erupt in laugher. Applying this meaning to the older farces that I've found, I discovered these attributes of unintellectual comedy in plays such as George Feydeau's A Flea in her Ear have hilarious and nonsensical lines and settings, which are funny, yet fall short of satirical or even meaningful. However, the play The Importance of being Earnest by Oscar Wilde demonstrates some valuable lessons through a more satirical, yet still ridiculous farcical mood.