The Use Of Crude Humor In The Turkish Shadow Theater

By having Everyman interact with these conceptualized characters, the author externalizes his inner conflict. Perhaps this technique seems too obvious or almost condescending to our more literate age, but whatever the case, it effectively conveys the central message of the play.

Humorists are often seen as insignificant contributors of society. People consider humorists no more than just “entertainers”, willing to make fun of anything in order to make a crowd laugh, however, has the audience ever contemplated why humorists are the some of the only people who are allowed to critique anything that crosses their mind without consequences? Alain de Botton, claims the vital role of humorist is, “to convey with impunity messages that might be dangerous or impossible to state directly.” I agree with Alain de Botton’s claims, that humorists do hold an important role in society, which is far more than to entertain. They break the ice on delicate topics, communicating the messages to society. Political cartoons and the Colbert

Michael Gow’s Away is a stage play about three socioeconomically varied families and their different holiday experiences. Throughout the play, Gow alludes to many of Shakespeare’s texts to deepen the audiences’ understanding of the performance. Distinct connections are shown between Gow’s Away and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest and King Lear. These references feature through direct use of lines, characters, theatrical conventions and themes. This essay will explore each of these methods of allusion and explain how this use of intertextuality heightens audience comprehension.

The term metatheatre is used to refer to any instance in which a play draws attention to itself as a play, rather than pretending to be a representation of “reality.” Various uses of metatheatrical devices can be found in the works of William Shakespeare. One of Shakespeare’s favorite such devices is the “play-within-a-play.” With this device, the theatre audience finds itself watching an audience (on stage) watching a play. The play-within-a-play is thus a self-reflexive device that addresses the question of where audience reality ends and theatrical illusion begins. Shakespeare often incorporated the device as an integral part of his plots. A famous example can

In the Shakespearian play: The Taming of the Shrew, deception is one of the major concepts. A tangled web is created in the play through deception of character behavior and the change between clothing and class. Most of the deception in the play have particular motives behind them and create dramatic irony. Shakespeare has used dramatic irony to create a comedic play.

For example, in the beginning of the film, a significant scene in which Princess Fiona gets rescued by Shrek, an ogre who masks his appearance with a helmet and disguise, is displayed. Throughout this scene dramatic irony is evident because before Fiona knew Shrek’s true identity and outward appearance, she, guided by her misconceptions, believed that her disguised rescuer was a typical “Prince Charming.” However, the audience was acutely aware that this was not the case. Similar to aspects of our modern society, all her life, Fiona has grown up believing in the generic “happily ever after” with the perfect “Prince Charming” and had never dared to think that other alternatives exist. Therefore, through developing dramatic irony and using this specific technique the satire effectively attains its goal when Fiona discovers the true identity of her “Prince Charming.” Although Shrek had an unrealistic and improbable situation, the audience clearly understands the criticism towards society’s great desire at perfection based off of fairy tales.

Both of the plays I will look at are very sinister, subversive plays, riddled with dark humour. What is important to remember is that the plays are not just absurd for the sake of being

"Nowadays the plays' meaning is usually blurred by the fact that the actor plays to the audiences hearts. The figures portrayed are foisted on the audience and are falsified in the process. Contrary to present custom they ought to be presented quite coldly, classically and objectively. For they are not matter for empathy; they are there to be understood and politely added

Nearly every character in the play at some point has to make inferences from what he or she sees, has been told or overhears. Likewise, nearly every character in the play at some point plays a part of consciously pretending to be what they are not. The idea of acting and the illusion it creates is rarely far from the surface -

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play that utilises comedy to convey complex ideas that are seen throughout the play, concepts like the jealousy Helena has towards Hermia, Egeus’s strong hostility towards Hermia and Lysander’s relationship and unrequited love. He uses comical tools like unconscious irony and hyperbole to turn rather difficult topics into humorous representations of them. Events like how Puck thinks Titania had fallen in love with him, not knowing he was bearing the head of an ass, are portrayed in a humorous way so the viewer understands the meaning, but sees it as a light- hearted narrative. Shakespeare carefully uses comedy that does not overpower the meaning of the play, but puts a completely different perspective on some of the themes.

One recent case where the mass media poked fun at and satirized the government was the year 2000 election. In the time where ballots and votes became confused and the state of Florida became the punch-line to many a water cooler joke, shows such as the ones above took the story and ran with it. From the very beginning the satire of political figures played its role in the election. According to the Washington Post and the Pew Research Center, 47 percent of Americans under the age of 30 receive around 26% of their information about candidates, amongst other political matters, through late night comedy television. This trend has been labeled by many “Infotainment.” The viewers are receiving information about political issues and their government, but through a sarcastic or humorous filter that creates a different culture of informed citizens.

To what extent do the comic plays you have studied mirror the political, social and military circumstances of the age in which they were performed?’

In Volpone and Twelfth Night both Shakespeare and Jonson use disguise to make the audience laugh, but also to explore more serious themes. Such as gender issues within Shakespeare and Jonson with exploring greed and how it can destroy you. The playwrights make the audience laugh by using a range of different methods such as interaction with the audience throughout the plays. The writers’ purposes right at the beginning are to explore the theme of greed through humour, and explore the roles people hide behind. As Francois de La Rochefoucauld says; ‘We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves’ this suggests that mankind are so practised in disguise that the blur between reality and falsehood becomes invisible even to themselves. The audience’s expectation of the plays is to be engaged with them and for them to feel superior to the characters within the play; thus if the characters make fools of themselves they will laugh. Disguise is also something the audience wants to see. What the audience also wants is a sense of dramatic irony. This is used throughout - thus making the audience to feel as if they have the upper hand, they know more than the actual characters themselves.

There are a wide variety of theatrical movements that have occurred over time. One of these includes the theatre of the absurd. Theater of the absurd refers to the literary movement in drama popular throughout European countries from the 1940s to approximately 1989. A definition of the term "absurdism" is referred to a literary and philosophical movement that flourished after the Second World War and bears a close relationship to Existentialism. Absurdism 's signature attitude is therefore black humor, an ambiguous mixture of tragic pathos and preposterous comedy, which finds it compelling literary expression in the work of authors such as Samuel Beckett (“Absurdism” 3). In this paper, I will explore the development of absurdism in two different plays, The Room and Waiting for Godot.

Although there are plays which are mainly written for a reading audience, dramatic texts are generally meant to be presented in front of an audience, in a theatre. Therefore, dramatic texts are different by compared to poetic or narrative texts. There is the primary text (the main body of the play spoken by the characters), and secondary texts (all the texts accompanying the main text: title, dramatis personae, scene descriptions, stage directions for acting and speaking). Depending on whether one reads a play or watches it on stage, one has different kinds of access to dramatic texts. The reader receives written information on what the characters look like, how they act and react in certain situations, how they speak or the setting of the background to a scene. However, another reader also has to make an effort to imagine all these characteristics and interpret them for oneself. On the other hand, stage performances reveal these details from a completely different perspective. In other words: at the theatre the audience is presented with a version of the play which has already been interpreted by the director, actors, costume designers, make-up artists and all the other members of theatre staff, who bring the play to life. The difference, then, lies in different forms of perception. While the audience can actually see