Lesson 5: comedy

• Engels
• Middelbare school

Comedies

Black comedy

Romantic Comedy

Slapstick

Farce

Comedy of manners

Innuendo/wordplay

A kind of dramatic comedy that explores the way upper and middle class society behave. It values appearances over morals. Topics: greed and lust, smart wordplay, intelligent characters

Light-hearted comedies about the misunderstandings between lovers. Often has a happy ending and marriage. 

Dramatic comedy where difficult topics (war, death) are treated with bitterness. The play is meant to shock and offend the audience.

Black comedy

Romantic Comedy

Slapstick

Farce

Comedy of manners

Innuendo/wordplay

words have more than one meaning, often sexual

humour is created through a series of absurd events that happen quickly after another. The play feels frantic, confused, hilarious and sometimes it is a bit cruel

comedy based on physical mishaps

What type of humour did you see?

What type of humour did you see?

Another thing...

Both videos had a confusion of gender. This was even funnier in Shakespeare's time because women were played by boys. 

So.... a character who is a woman, is played by a boy, who pretends to be a man. 

What could go wrong?

Let's look at how different types of humour work in the Twelfth Night by following the play's characters and their choices. 

Write the names of the characters and draw lines to create a diagram of their relations. 

Viola is washed up on the shore of Illyria after losing her twin brother Sebastian in a shipwreck. She dresses as a boy, calls herself Cesario and goes to work for a rich Duke called Orsino.

Orsino is in love with Countess Olivia. He sends Cesario to Olivia with love messages.

Olivia falls in love with Cesario instead

Malvolio, Olivia's steward, wants to marry her to gain power. He is proud and offfends Olivia’s uncle, Sir Toby Belch, and his friend Sir Andrew. Together with maid Maria they come up with a plan to get back at him.

Maria writes a love letter to Malvolio, pretending it’s from Olivia. The letter asks him to do strange things to prove his love for Olivia. Malvolio, of course, obeys

Sebastian arrives in Illyria with his friend Antonio. Viola doesn't know he is alive. 

Viola visits Olivia’s house dressed as 'Cesario' and Sir Toby Belch sets up a duel between ‘him’ and Sir Andrew. Antonio thinks that Viola is Sebastian and tries to stop it.

Sebastian arrives in Illyria with his friend Antonio. Viola doesn't know he is alive. 

Viola visits Olivia’s house dressed as 'Cesario' and Sir Toby Belch sets up a duel between ‘him’ and Sir Andrew. Antonio thinks that Viola is Sebastian and tries to stop it.

Olivia sees Sebastian and thinks he’s ‘Cesario’. She asks him to marry her and Sebastian is surprised (he doesn't know her at all) but agrees.

Malvolio does all the things he was asked to in the letter to prove his love to Olivia. Sir Toby and Maria pretend he has gone mad and lock him in a dark room.

Finally Sebastian and Viola are both seen in the same place at the same time. Everything is resolved and Orsino asks Viola to marry him, Sebastian marries Olivia, and Belch marries Maria. 

Performance

Read the speech on the Handout. Is it funny? 

We'll watch Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous, anyone?) perform this. Think of how her delivery of the lines add to the scene. 

We will discuss this in class after the video, so take notes

traditional and...

We will watch the same scene again

The director, Emma Rice, does things entirely differently. How does this performance change the scene? 

Is it funnier? 

and now...

We've seen loads of ways in which things can be funny, looked at modern interpretations, and now a very big question that no one really knows the answer to...

What is comedy?

We hope you enjoyed getting to know Shakespeare