farce
farce,a form of popular comedy with its distant roots in the improvisations which actors introduced into the text of medieval religious dramas (the word is derived from the word farce, stuffing). Later forms include the interludes performed in the 15th and 16th cents, and the classical farce of Molière , whose works were freely adapted by British dramatists. The 19th-cent. middle-class French farce, as practised by Eugène Labiche ( 1815 – 88 ), Georges Feydeau ( 1862 – 1921 ), and Georges Courteline ( 1858 – 1929 ), has also proved popular in adaptation. In England, the full-length home-grown farce emerged in the 19th cent.: Morton's Box and Cox was a famous if isolated example, and Pinero also wrote several, including The Magistrate ( 1885 ), The Schoolmistress ( 1886 ), and Dandy Dick ( 1887 ). Gilbert and Sullivan's farcical comic operas belong to the same period....
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