Essay_on_Five_Comedies

1. On the concepts of inversion, repetition and reciprocal interference applied to The School for Wives, Feydeau’s My Wife’s Dead Mother, Private Lives, Beyond Therapy, and Sure Thing Bergson explores laughter and how comedy can achieve this pure human expression of vulnerability. Thru his essay entitle Le Rire (On Laughter) he establishes methods, strategies or tools used since comedy was named. Some of these elements are describe in Chapter Two of the essay and can be summoned in three mayor characteristics: repetition, inversion and reciprocal interference of series. Repetition is defined as “a combination of circumstances, which recurs several times in its original form and thus contrasts with the changing stream of life” (119, Bergson, 1899). In other words, repetition is an element based in the use of a situation, movement or words repeatedly. This gimmick is very popular in classic and modern comedy. An example for classic comedy is Feydeau’s My Wife’s Dead Mother. In this argument, Feydeau writes many times about Lucien’s upset stomach and him eating out. The comic element is Yvonne for she takes advantage of each possible moment to let him know how upsetting him eating out. The debate, or, for farces sake, fight becomes repetitive and its use evolves from tragic or sad to completely funny. The situation is taken outside of the couple’s core and Annette is involved by Yvonne. Annette: Anyding furder vhile I’m up und in here' Yvonne: (Arranging her covers.) Ask him, Annette—ask monsieur. He’s the sick sufferer. Lucien: (Sounding exhausted.) I have a queasy stomach. Annette: Vell den, if m’sieu didn’t run around und act de fool. Having Lucien in the middle of an inquisition can become hysterically funny just with the use of the repetition of fights. A modern comedy that also uses this comic element thru the same means is Private Lives. Noel Cöward has exchangeable couples arguing throughout the play. He inserts another repetition that achieves comedy with one word: Sollocks. Amanda and Elyot have decided to stop arguing and select a command that establishes when a conversation is turning into an argument. Sollocks, short for Solomon Isaacs, is used a couple of times, but it achieves its highest comic climax in the second Act after Amanda turns the radiogram on while Elyot reads a magazine. Amanda: […] There now, you’ve ruined the record. (She scrutinizes it.) Elyot: Good job, too. Amanda: Disagreeable pig. Elyot: (taking a step to her, suddenly stricken with remorse.) Amanda darling – Sollocks. Amanda: (fruriously) Sollocks yourself! (She breaks the record over his head.) Amanda can’t contain her anger towards Elyot anymore so she decides to end up the Sollock’s game and just be who they were. The author, combines physical comedy with literary wit to achieve a highly comical scene. Inversion, according to Bergson, “has so much analogy with the first (repetition) that we will merely define it without insisting on illustrations. […] if you reverse the situation and invert the roles, you obtain a comic scene”(p.121, Le Rire, 1899). An excellent example of roles inversion is in Noel Cöward’s Private Lives. In the third act, the roles Amanda and Elyot have been playing as a dysfunctional couple that only know how to argue, are taken by Sybil and Victor. Another good example of inversion is plausible in Beyond Therapy by Christopher Durang. In Act one, scene three, we have Bruce and his therapist, Charlotte. Their roles are inverted, Charlotte talks about herself while Bruce listens. This comic element can be found in many other plays. The Drama Department of the University of Puerto Rico, recently staged one of the plays Bergson alludes when talking about this topic. “Lawyer Pathelin tells his client of a trick to outwit the magistrate; the client employs the self-same trick to avoid paying the lawyer” (122, Le Rire, 1899). This farce also presents another case of the robber-robed with Señor Guillermo. He, because of the economic crisis he suffers, want to charge almost full price to Pathelin for a piece of linen. Eventually, Pathelin keeps the cloth as a wedding gift. The same gimmick can be found in Molière’s The School for Wives where Arnolphe, who tries to deceive everyone, especially Horace and Agnès, ends up being the one deceived for he can’t marry the young woman he had trained. Sure Thing by David Ives, presents a precise case of inversion. The author achieves it by exchanging lines between Betty and Bill. Bill: I was so excited after ten pages that I went out and bought everything else he wrote. One of the greates reading experiences of my life I mean, all that incredible psychological understanding. Page after page of gorgeous prose. His profound grasp of the mystery of time and human existence. The smells of the earth… what do you think' Betty: I think it’s pretty boring. (Bell.) Bill: What’s the book' Betty: The Sound and the Fury. Bill: Oh! Faulkner! Betty: Do you like Faulkner' Bill: I love Faulkner. Betty: He’s incredible. Bill: I spent a whole winter reading him once. Betty: I was so excited after ten pages that I went out and bought everything else he wrote. Bill: All that incredible psychological understanding. Betty: And the prose is so gorgeous. Bill: And the way he’s grasped the mystery of time— Betty: -- and human existence. I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to read him. Bill describes Faulkner in the first sequence. After the bell, the lines are divided between them. The change of attitude in Betty from negative to positive, serves as an inversion that results very funny. Reciprocal interference is described by Bergson as a situation that “belongs simultaneously to two altogether independent series of events and is capable of being interpreted in two entirely different meaning at the same time”(p. 123, Le Rire, 1899). Molière’s The School for Wives is an example. Arnolphe has recruited Agnès to be his wife and when she falls in love with Horace, he tries to accelerate their wedding to prevent Horace from interfering in his plans. Never the less, destiny had another plan. Agnès is the daughter of Enrique and nice to Chrysalde, one of Arnolphe’s dearest friend. The relationship between Agnès and Arnolphe’s friends is an obstacle that doesn’t allow him to marry her and makes Horace more suitable as her husband. Thru analyzing how Bergson is alive within the texts read in class we can see that comedy has been structured according to parameters aligned with human psychology, which seems not to have changed so much as we think. Repetition, inversion and reciprocal interference of series, work as functional tools for contemporary writers. 3. Physical comedy and satirical dialogue as comic elements within The School for Wives, Private Lives, Beyond Therapy and Feydeau’s farces Comedy, as a written text, requires a sense of wittiness that engages us in an enjoyable lecture. Imagination comes as a Rudolph to help the words. As you read, you begin to visualize the scene and the lines, that have been written, develop life. The wit will have a hard time surviving if the situation that we have imagined plays against it. Then comedy, since it’s origin in Ancient Greece, consciously or not, has been done to appeal both the ear and the eye as, therefore, the intellect. Furthermore, we can say that because it appeals to two of the mayor and most common input channels of the human being as well as to the mental process that characterizes our race itself, comedy appeals the very soul. This game allows comedy to explore itself thru different mechanisms. It may be shown as absent-mindedness or even mere ignorance within a social context. It may be shown, also, as extreme awareness of situations combined with eccentricity within a social context. That social context is more than necessary to develop an element, let it be meant to be said or done, as comic. A writer, since this world is a web of situations that evolves from human actions and reactions, observes and works ideas that imply the use the word, the use of the body or the combination of both aligned to a preference or message his mind wants to state. Comedy appears, then, as a work that also appeals to our everyday life and nature. A character has a verbal and physical dimension that play toward achieving a goal. The physical awareness a character develops can vary and reach many different levels. This physical awareness, that we can imagine as we read, has a lot of importance when it comes to comedy. Laughter can be achieved by actions worked only with body movements. Silent films are an excellent example of how important the right movement at the right moment of a given situation can transform a mere smile into a hysterical laugh. Times and society have changed, and thought we are a highly visual generation, many, many authors still combine words and movement to generate to make us laugh. On the second chapter of Le Rire it says: “TENSION and ELASTICITY are two forces, mutually complementary, which life brings into play. If these two forces are lacking in the body to any considerable extent, we have sickness and infirmity and accidents of every kind. If they are lacking in the mind, we find every degree of mental deficiency, every variety of insanity. Finally, if they are lacking in the character, we have cases of the gravest inadaptability to social life, which are the sources of misery and at times the causes of crime.” (p. 72 ,Bergson, 1899) Both, physical comedy and wit, disguised as satirical dialogues, apply this rule and we can see it clearly in the actions and reactions of characters. Tension and elasticity might be best understood as the capability of retaining and expelling feelings thru energy in a given circumstance. Molière’s The School for Wives, being written in the seventeenth century, has within its structure this model. Anita Gates writes for the NY Times that in the Pearl Company’s production of this classic: “Mr. Daily, playing a man so foolish that his sexist theories seem harmless (Arnolphe), does well at both verbal and physical comedy. The play’s slapstick — directed by Shepard Sobel and enacted mostly by Arnolphe’s dim servants Alain (Bradford Cover) and Georgette (Rachel Botchan) and, in one memorable scene, by the aged, slow- moving Notary (T. J. Edwards, who also plays Horace’s father) — is sometimes strained, sometimes smoothly amusing.” (NY Times, Nov. 20, 2006) An example of this, can be noted in Act one, scene two. Arnolphe, after arriving to the house he has Agnes convicted in, gets involved in a game with Alain and Georgette in which mind tension and elasticity evolve into a physical game of doing and not doing. Satire gets involved as far a dialogue goes. First, the servants have a verbal interaction about why neither can open the door, then about who is opening the door. The dialogues satirized the laziness of servants very much like the Harlequin from Commedia dell Arte, work only for food. This interaction may become physical first when each of them evades opening the door, then fighting over who is opening the door. Molière specifies that after having Arnolphe inside, Alain strikes him “a blow meant […] for Georgette”. Having Alain and Georgette fighting over two opposite things is totally absurd. It reflects how this two characters lack a mental stability. They serve as clowns. The presence of tension and elasticity in the movement evolves into that punch that Arnolphe receives for mistake. Later one, in Act one to the end of scene four, Molière develops another expression of tension and elasticity in Horace that expresses physically within the character. While Arnolphe is in shock after discovering Horace is in love with the woman he has chosen to be his wife, Horace, love-struck, engages in a nervous game that makes him exit and return twice. Thought, this game of entering and exiting is a comic element itself, actually, it’s Arnolphe’s reaction which becomes the most important part of the routine. He expects Horace to return a third time but he is left with the expectation. Tension is created thru Horace while relaxation is achieved in Arnolphe’s reaction. We can see in these two examples how tension and elasticity express themselves within the dialogue and actions as doing and not doing, allowing and not allowing. The characters become tense and relax afterwards, they exchange roles with these reactions and then explore other forms of tension and relaxation. In both cases, the comic elements require the counter position of the ideas worked. Christopher Durang in Beyond Therapy allows this game as well. A text written three centuries later, still captures and reinforces this method or formula of achieving laughter. Melisa Leon writes for AYougTheater.com that: “Beyond Therapy is hilarious – its mix of satire with physical comedy, witty dialogue with the absurd, certainly makes it fun to watch. On one level, there is something overridingly comfortable about it.”(Articles, posted June 8,2010) Durang’s characters, whose psychological complexity deepens allowing further playing with tension and elasticity, explore situations that grow to extremes that expose their instinctive behavior not allowing rational behaviors to occur. In Act one, scene one, to the end of this scene Prudence has been taken to a level of incommodity by Bruce’s crying, another physical comedy element, and his straight forward approaches that feels she has to throw a glass of water at him. As reaction, Bruce does the same. The tension is build up by the author since their eyes met and it relaxes once Prudence allows her anger to be released. In scene number six, at Bruce and Bob’s apartment, Durang created an ambiance characterized by a lot of tension. He wisely builds the circumstances, not only to satirize trios but also to make fun of human tolerance. Bob has remained in the apartment while Bruce and Prudence met in that same place for a dinner. Prudence and Bob become very uncomfortable with each other, while Bruce tries to ignore that his date has in fact become the kind of dinner no one would like to be. All the tension is released thru yelling at each other and playing the game of victim and victimizer, Bob’s mother included. The physicality within this scene has many levels. First of all, the action of yelling is a physical business itself. Secondly, the characters engage a discussion very similar to a domestic fight with a twist, they are a threesome. You have, as a spectator, two physical comedy elements, the facial expressions while yelling and the movement manifestation possible in “civilized” triangle. The recent revival of Noël Coward’s Private Lives has been describe by David Benedict for Variety as an ambiguous staging in which some of the actors seemed forced on achieving the Coward-esque musicality. At the same time, he considers physical humor to be a highlight. “The play only truly comes to life in the scenes of physical comedy. […] Yet in one of the funniest comedies in the language, it's something of an indictment that the biggest laughs come from flying furnishings and a giant fish tank springing a leak.” (Legit Reviews, March 4, 2010) He obviously refers to the marital fights we encounter in throughout the second Act. Elyot and Amanda engage a frenzy that is hysterically funny when read and can be when staged. This quality is visible throughout the play. From the very first dialogues, satire engages the reader, or spectator, into the lives of this pair of exes. Not only personal satire, but also political. In act one, when Elyot and Amanda meet for the second time at the balcony (pp. 19-20), they satirizes slightly and very subtle the Japanese and the Muslim cultures which Elyot has recently visited. Amanda: China must be very interesting. Elyot: Very big, China. Amanda: And Japan— Elyot: Very small. Amanda: Did you eat shark’s fins, and take your shoes off, and use chopsticks and everything' Elyot: Practically everything. Amanda: And India, the burning Ghars, or Ghats, or whatever they are, and the Taj Mahal. How was the Taj Mahal' These characters in particular are very human, and their behavior can be described as almost childishly. They have seen each other as objects and that allows them to forget the meaning of respect. Later on, Cöward allows us to see two people who seem to love each other but suddenly engage hate to a point of not caring for the physical integrity of the other. This allows any director to set a game of throws, catches and murder attempts to intensify the written word achieving enormous laughter. Noel Cöward had the capacity of introducing into his characters’ psychology world conceptions proper of his period that are still present within modern society. His work becomes timeless to our generation. Thought Molière, Durang and Cöward develop physical comedy combined with satire in their works, Feydeau, who writes farces in a moment when realism is taking over melodrama, combines perfectly both gags in My Wife’s Dead Mother. Having in mind and mixing some of the elements the two main genres in the XVIII century exposed à la Belle Époque, this farce and others of his mastery must be quite absurd while funny if staged. A little incidental music, for the dropped-sock maid, and some tension, once the Yvonne’s mother ball of snow is set loose, should enhance a realistic interpretation of marital satire. In page 261 of My Wife’s Dead Mother, Lucien and Yvonne expose their marital incommodity in a way very common to our times. Lucien: You do know how to annoy that girl. Yvonne: Well, if that’s not the limit. I’m the one who annoys her! (Under his nose) Who’s the chamomile tea for' Lucien: (Nearly shouting.) My supper didn’t go down properly. Yvonne: (At the same volume.) Of course. Always the same thing. (At the mantel, she puts a carafe on the warmer.) He has to eat out. Eating out leads to indigestion. As a wife and cook she isn’t entertaining enough, but she’ll do as a home nurse. This example gives us both elements. Yvonne’s line under Lucien’s nose followed by his almost furious reaction is a physical comedy element. Yvonne’s deduction on why Lucien eats out is witty and can be a very funny dialogue. Like this one, there are many others in his work. As we saw earlier, Bergson’s theory on tension and elasticity can be applied to the physical and satirical comedy elements within Molière, Durang, Cöward and Feydeau. Why' To summarize, the four plays used as examples are written pictures of humanity and according to Bergson, tension and elasticity are the energies that conform life itself. Movement and speech, being nature to human beings, become provable subjects of the forces described on Le Rire.