ABSTRACT
The multi-leveled plot, also known as ensemble comedy, mixes several groups of characters, interacting and brought together over one unifying event. It compares and contrasts various responses of social groups to the same stimulus or setting. The sub-genre has a bit of upstairs/downstairs comedy to it as in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream or the mix of numerous elements in The Gods Must Be Crazy, where an African bushman, bumbling game warden, lovely school teacher, African revolutionaries, children, and animals play their parts. The simple act then becomes a communal comedy, of numerous players coming on stage to complicate the matter of one miracle. The macabre multi-level comedy is more akin to the ruse and treachery of Jacob's sons over Shechem's betrothal to Dinah in Anita Diamant's novel The Red Tent or of David having to get 100 Philistine foreskins for his marriage to King Saul's daughter.
