Farce

Farce, form of drama intended to excite laughter through exaggeration and extravagance rather than by realistic imitation of life. It differs from comedy chiefly in the emphasis on plot; in farce, characters are necessary only to act out the intricacies of the plot; whereas in comedy, plot is subordinated to characterization.

Farcical elements have entered into many forms of primitive comedy, but the term farce seems to have been first applied in France to the pieces produced by certain lay companies, or clercs de bazoche (organizations of such secular groups as notaries and law clerks, which held annual festivals), in contrast to the morality plays produced by the religious orders. A characteristic of many of the early farces was a mixture of dialects. For example, in the French farce L'avocat Patelin (Lawyer Patelin), an often adapted and translated 15th-century piece attributed to various authors, the principal character speaks seven dialects. Molière later refined the farce form into the comedy of manners. In England, at about the beginning of the 18th century, the farce came to be regarded as a form distinct from the comedy proper. Today, the term farce is freely applied to almost any light piece in which the comic effect is carried to ridiculous lengths.