Comedy

Honky takes the serious issue of racism and shines a light on certain aspects by using comedy and satire as tools to support and help illustrate topics discussed on stage. My focus of this paper will be on two actors that I believe personify comedy and seriousness the most in this production, Sam Richardson as Dr. Driscoll and Judd Johnson as Thomas Hodge. Richardson and Johnson both focused heavily in these two categories in Mikell Pinkley’s production of Honky, but Richardson’s comedic take on…

perspective of comedy. Northrop Frye says that the basic formula is when a young man loves a young woman. They are opposed by an obstacle, most often the woman 's father. Through plot twist they get married. Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy was expressed through gender, love, social ambition, and sex. Comedy is displayed in the play when the characters are drunk and almost about to pass out. They always manage to surprise us with their witty speech. In Northrop Frye’s essay of comedy, love was…

noted, is used to “sugarcoat the pill” of challenges in human life, and the romantic comedy genre follows this value (Casper, 260). Comedy, as a whole, reveals the “fragmentation of man” in a digestible, enjoyable manner for audiences. Romantic comedies, specifically, reveal the fragmentation of each partner in a relationship and the fragmentation of the relationship. Throughout the history of film, romantic comedies have stayed true to the classical conventions of the genre by presenting a…

The 13th century work, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, contains a prime example of the many existence of many different personas under the umbrella of one name. The work is written by Dante, voiced by Dante, and focused on Dante, but none of these are the same person Each is their own entity that exists in different realms and forms than the others. The three forms include Dante, the person, Dante, the writer of the Divine comedy, and Dante, the pilgrim and protagonist of the work. The…

The Text The Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare’s earlier plays. The first recorded performance of the comedy was on December 28, 1594, as part of the Christmas festivities at Gray’s Inn in London. The exact date that the play was written is uncertain, but it is generally agreed that it was written sometime during 1589-1594 and between The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Love’s Labour’s Lost. It was first printed in the First Folio in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, and is…

Slapstick comedy, That may bring to mind the Three Stooges or Charlie Chaplin. Slapstick is often thought of as a low humor style of comedy filled with farce and a touch of animated violence. And yet, that doesn't tell the whole story and slapstick is much older than you might think. Slapstick comedy is primarily a physical kind of comedy based around pratfalls and mild comic violence, smacks in the head, pokes in the eyes, people falling down, etc. While it is often thought of as low comedy,…

than those written from a non-comedic, dramatic point of view. In Toward a Theory of Comedy by Ruth Nevo, she discusses the different philosophic views from a comedic/tragic writing. By comparing laughter and comedy – which she examines as two different things with a few overlapping parts – she shows what exactly makes a comedy a comedy. A common theme in Nevo’s writing was how the Greek philosophers viewed comedies. The Greeks appreciated the drama and integrated it into their lives. They made…

A Timeline of Laughter: Comedy Through the Years Audiences have been entertained by stand-up comedians for more than a century. From the vaudeville shows of the 1800s to the musical stand-up acts of modern times, the history of stand-up comedy is rich – and its evolution has consisted of a fascinating timeline filled with tears and laughter. Whether a person prefers comedy delivered with dry wit, ribald cynicism, or silly banter meant to engage the audience, there is something for everyone…

The Art of Offense The art of stand up comedy is one that has been around for decades, from the early Bob Hope, to Don Rickles, to the more modern Anthony Jeselnik. This form of communication has been used not only to make people laugh, but to convey messages, thoughts, ideas and societal values. People often overlook this form of performance, or worse, they seek to limit it. This is a terrible thing that is happening in our society, people looking to censor art, tell people what they can and…

Stand-up comedy is a form of comedy that, for the most part, is conveyed by a performance entertainer talking straightforwardly to the crowd in an unconstrained way. In stand-up comedy, the feedback of the audience is immediate and essential for the comedian’s performance. The gathering expects an exceptional act and a constant flow of snickers, and the entertainer is constantly under pressure to perform. Stand-up, in the structure it is known today, is an emphatically American creation, with…