Comedy of Manners - Task 3 Notes PDF

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Summary

Script for final Task 3 presentation for Theater HL...

Description

A Comedy of Manners - Task 3 -

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Comedy of manners is a form of dramatic comedy that satirizes the manners of a contemporary society (Britannica) It first originated in England during their Restoration Period in the late 1600s - It continued into the 19th century to include plays by Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw and other contemporary playwrights (theatre styles.blogspot) It was written to expose the superficial values of the upper class society (Bachelor and Master) Comedy of manners is known as a highly comedic theater tradition as it involves a high level of sophistication and wit in the script itself (The Drama Teacher) - Therefore comedy of manners becomes a highly intellectual form of comedy that was mainly attended by the upper class - Theater pieces in this genre were typically written by sophisticated authors for members of their own social class (Britannica) A Comedy of Manners uses a mixture of both satire and farce in order to make fun of the manners of a certain social group and emphasize the comedy within a performance (The Drama Teacher) The Comedy of Manners that came about during the Restoration period had a much lighter and more vivacious tone that was influenced by Ben Jonson’s comedy of humors (Britannica) - The characters in a comedy of manners play use language that is brilliant at the surface but is superficial and has no real meaning to it - The dialogue is therefore often short and sharp to emphasize its wittiness and its satirical nature (Bachelor and Master) The characters are differentiated through their movement, gesture and way they carry themselves, in order to distinguish between the characters as well as to mock them and what they represent within a society (Blogspot) - For example: the fop, which was an effeminate male character, was shown to be fashionable and would strut across the stage and provide much of the sarcasm within the play - Whereas the female characters would flirt from behind handkerchiefs, fans, and half masks - The women in the plays would have to balance exaggeratedly large hats and carried muffs that not only warmed their hands but also could be used to hide secret objects (Blogspot) The manners are not performed realistically on stage the way we know realism today, but they are in fact exaggerated through the movement and physicality of the actor in order to highlight the satirical nature of the play (Blogspot)

https://www.britannica.com/art/comedy-of-manners http://www.thedramateacher.com/comedy-of-manners/ https://www.bachelorandmaster.com/literaryterms/comedy-of-manners.html#.WgmQkBNSxPM http://theatrestyles.blogspot.nl/2014/08/the-comedy-of-manners.html https://resource.acu.edu.au/trsanders/units/comedy/comedyofmanners.html “The Oxford Illustrated History of the Theater” by John Russell Brown “Theater Histories: An Introduction” by Tobin Nellhaus http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g7jSqIv5fZ4/UnrZpfwk1GI/AAAAAAAACq8/IQcmfAZK0A/s1600/The_Rivals.jpg http://commedia.klingvall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/callot01.jpg...