_Farce_ is essentially extreme. It deals with the absurd, the
ridiculous, not with the physically impossible. Though not in itself
probable, all its actions proceed just as though the basis on which it
is worked out were probable.
To illustrate both types, we may recall an extremely humorous comedy
situation which was worked out by Miss May Irwin some years ago in
"The Swell Miss Fitzwell." One of the characters had conspired with a
physician to deceive the former's wife by pretending to break his leg.
As a matter of fact he tumbles down stairs with an awful clatter and
the leg is actually broken. The doctor comes in, according to the
scheme, and, not knowing that the leg is broken, begins to twist it
with fine professional vigor. The victim howls and protests that he is
in agony, but the doctor merely whispers in a cheerful aside, "Keep it
up, you are playing your part beautifully!" And so the play goes on.
All this might easily have happened in real life, and the audience is
tickled--not to see a man apparently suffer, but at the humor of the
biter being bit. The very incongruity is the foundation of the
humor--incongruity, mingled with surprise.
But farce would not be content with twisting the leg, it would go to
any absurd extreme imaginable.
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