ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces readers to the impetus for writing the book. From a scholarly place, it has been approximately 20 years since a major study has been written about farce. Yet contemporary playwrights are embracing the form’s recognisable (and humorous) tropes, often turning them on their heads, or subverting them, in order to disarm audiences while slyly exploring ‘hot-button’ topics.
For a genre that has been around since the Greeks, farce elicits strong, often-polarizing emotions. Some people love it. Some people hate it. Most practitioners agree that it is one of the most difficult of theatrical forms to pull off successfully because it requires an innate sense of discipline, specificity, and timing. The book seeks to demystify the practice of farce and encourage more people – artists and audiences – to see its possibilities. When a farce is done poorly, there is nothing more awful to sit through. When it’s done well, and produces that ‘rolling in the aisle’ type of laughter, it is sublime.
