farce

Genre broad popular comedy drama involving stereotyped characters in which ordinary people become unwittingly trapped in complex and often improbable situations. The term ‘bedroom farce’ relates to a common farcical situation revolving around extramarital relationships.

Originating in the physical knockabout comedy of Greek satyr plays and the broad humour of medieval religious drama, the farce was developed and perfected during the 19th century by Eugène Labiche (1815–1888) and Georges Feydeau (1862–1921) in France and Arthur Pinero (1835–1934) in England.

farce

In 18th-century opera, a comic scene introduced into a serious work. Hence a complete comic opera so interpolated, or simply a comic opera in one act (Italian farsa). The modern sense of the term in English (an absurdly comic play) is derived from this. In earlier English the verb had the meaning it still has in French of stuffing food with seasoning, and in music it was used for the practice of interpolating words in the Kyrie eleison.