Farce

Farce is a comic dramatic genre of a light, entertaining character, built on external comedy, buffoonery, sharp situations, misunderstandings, disguises, and exaggerations; its aim is to provoke laughter rather than deep reflection. Farce descends from the medieval interludes that were inserted ('farcir' — to stuff) into serious religious performances; it later became an independent genre of folk theater. In farce conventional comic mask-types act, and a dynamic, often coarse action prevails. Elements of farce were masterfully used by Molière in his comedies. In the Ukrainian tradition the farcical element nourished the folk theater, the comic part of the vertep, and the interludes to the school drama of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where everyday types were ridiculed in comic scenes. Farcical grotesque is also present in modern comedy writing.