Theatre powerpoint

1. Comedy
Carolina Subirán
Lidia Scafaru
Paula Sorribes

2. Contents
★ What is comedy?
★ Characteristics
★ Types
★ Activity

3. What is comedy?
➢Comedy is a type of drama written to amuse the
audience.
➢According to Aristotle, ancient comedy originated
with the komos, a curious and improbable spectacle
in which a company of festive males apparently sang,
danced, and cavorted rollickingly around the image of
a large phallus.

4. Characteristics
❖ Comedy focuses on society
❖ Happy endings
❖ Characters are stereotypes associated to social class or
behaviour
❖ The audience knows what is going to happen before the
characters on stage do
❖ Harmony chaos and disruption harmony

5. TypesTypes

6. Romantic comedy
composite genre which centres mostly on the vicissitudes of
young lovers, who get happily united in the end

7. comedy of humours
a form of drama typical at the end of the 16th and the
beginning of the 17th century; based on the medieval and
Renaissance belief that people’s actions are governed by
their dominant bodily humour (blood, phlegm, bile or
black bile),

8. satirical comedy
a form of comedy whose main purpose is to expose the vices and
shortcomings of society and of people representing that
society;

9. comedy of manners
Centres on the elegance of a stylish society
Mainly upper and middle classes
Topics: social intrigue, mainly marital and sexual,
and also adultery and cuckoldry
Predominant during the 17th century

10. sentimental comedy
Reaction against the inmoral and corrupt comedy
of manners
Focuses on the virtues of private life
Simple and honourable characters
Predominant during the 18th century

11. farce
● Aim roar with laughter
● Exaggerated physical action, character and
absurd situation
● Improbable events
● Complex plots

12. black comedy
Cynicism and desillusionment
Human beings without hope
Their lives were controlled by fate
Popular in the second half of the 20th century

13. Activity
What is the basic objective of comedy?
a. to make cry b. to amuse c. to bore
Characters…
a. are taken from everyday life b. are superior in character or social standing

15. Bibliography
❏https://btk.ppke.hu/uploads/articles/135505/file/introduc
tion/drama/dramatic_genres_comedy_types.html
❏http://homepage.smc.edu/adair-
lynch_terrin/ta%205/elements.htm
❏http://www.slideshare.net/suzieallen336/what-is-comedy-
14863416