Comedic Timing (10- minute plays: Comedy!)

To be honest, I think I preferred the dramatic short plays. Even though they dealt with heavier subjects, they also had funny moments that carried more weight.

Of all of these, however, I particularly enjoyed The Philadelphia. I thought it was a very original and clever idea. The concept both explains in a hilarious way those tough days we all feel like we have sometimes where nothing we want works out, while poking fun at the city of Philadelphia, and creating funny characters all at the same time.
A tactic that many of the comedic writers used was dramatic, unrealistic, and almost unfitting statements in response to a silly situation. For example in The Philadelphia Marks asks, “Well what can I do? Should I just kill myself now and get it over with?” Al responds, “You try to kill yourself in a Philadelphia, you’re only gonna get hurt, babe.” Even though they’re dealing with such a normally serious topic, the drama becomes ridiculous and funny because of the bizarre and unrealistic situation.

One thing I noticed while reading all of these plays is that although the characters are interesting, it is usually because of the situation and not because of the actual depth of the characters. Although comedy definitely allows for flatter characters, I think Anything For You had more interesting character development than the usual comedic scene or short play.

In Anything For You, we know the play is comedic right off the bat with the random blathering Gail does in the beginning. Her talk about the rapper turns out to be completely unrelated with the rest of the point of the play so it is a hilarious touch to throw such a random rant in. Although someone in real life probably would not be so blunt about such a thing, the character Lynette’s bluntness works for her and is the reason the plot moves so quickly and smoothly. A difference I found with this play, as opposed to the other short comedic plays we read, is that it begins with comedy and ends a bit more seriously, with the confession of real feelings, etc.

Most of these comedic plays found their comedy through unique ideas or exploring something not often thought about in such a way (for example the inner monologues of a dog encountering a bear and their interaction in suburbia).
The Duet For Bear and Dog was hilarious mainly due to the fact that we were allowed to hear a conversation played out between the two of them. However, the addition of the teasing about certain things, etc. added a lot. For example, Bear teases Dog about having a name and this embarrasses Dog. I also enjoyed that Bear was slightly poetic when shot with the tranquilizer gun. Hilarious.

I didn’t, however, particularly like the play Aimée. Although the situation was strange, I didn’t find it particularly funny. It was a clever play on words but the turn around in both Madge and Larry at the end was just too sudden for my liking.