Joe Orton and the Subversion of the French Farcical Tradition.

Abstract

Joe Orton’s plays represent a swing between the influence and the subversion of nineteenth-century farcical formulae, as they were popularised by French vaudevilliste Georges Feydeau. The aim of this paper is to explore the use Orton made of the external structure of farce and vaudeville so as to conceal a fierce criticism of a decadent society. The classical comic molds, as they were displayed in France by playwrights such as Eugène Labiche and Georges Feydeau, are but a subterfuge veiling burlesque and farcical comedy, those two revolutionary artistic forms which lead to social subversion. In this sense, not only was Orton acknowledging the freedom the artist had in France but, also, rejecting the process of softening and bowdlerization by which English farce had become throughout nineteenth century a commodious and pleasant social device in the service of the bourgeoisie, and reclaiming a farcical formula capable of demolishing by means of laughter the convenient complacency of the audience.