The Wanganui Chronicle. SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1949. THE PHILOSOPHY OF FARCE

Wanganui Chronicle, 23 July 1949, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1949. THE PHILOSOPHY OF FARCE

CARCK is fact disguised as fiction, lienee its importance. It disguise is achieved by the process of exaggeration. This playing of pulling faces commences in early childhood and continues throughout healthy life. When a man cannot imagine or enjoy a a farce he is in trouble. Rigor mortis of the mind is setting in. Let the cry therefore be: On with the farce i

Professor Saintsbury in his History of French Literature says of the farce that, it “deals with an actual or possible incident ol life to which the comic complexion is given by the treatment.’’ Farce, then, has a realistic foundation and in that ifc differentiates itself from phantasy. The fantasia is an attempt to get away from reality, the aim is to climb into an entirely unreal world. The more unreal jt is the more successful is the effort. Farce, however, does not contrive to get out of the world: it is determined to stay on the ground with both feet, but to have as much fun as there is to be extracted from it. One of the finest farces to be seen in New Zealand was the French film “The Nine Bachelors.” There are plenty of old rascals who would be willing to marry a stranger for a few pounds, if it suited the convenience of the other party. The author of “Nine Bachelors” saw in the French law requiring aliens to register an opportunity to point out how easily such a law could be circumvented. He could, had he been a ponderous person, written a leading article about it in a newspaper. To do this, however, first, requires a newspaper that will permit its editorial column to be made available with the man with a mission. Besides editors are such serious persons, at least they take themselves very seriously and they assume that their readers do so too. That is the farcical touch of the editorial sanctum. There the little man sits, worrying himself thin wondering what he shall write about every Saturday morning in order to restore his own and his reader’s sanity after a week of hates and spites and fights. Unless a laugh is raised by somebody the whole effort of keeping the public sane will go wrong and writer and reader will go down the mental drain together.

The playwright is under no uompulsion to be either wise or witty every morning of his working life. He is no slave to the task of continuous output. He can look at his material from all sides and then he can sit down and write like a. human being, whereas the editor knowing he is not a God has to pronounce judgments as though he were something in that line. Mr. Lloyd George said there was nothing more funny than a little man parading before the footlights in the habilitaments of a giant. But that is not half so funny as a little man having to pretend that he has a big head with a lot inside it. But the pseudo giant doesn’t sec the fumy side of his own position unless he is very lucky.

When a student of world affairs is told by an admiring reader that’the best article he ever wrote was on “Snuff” the student is entitled to sniff. Such is fame! But it is undeniably funny. Here is an earnest fellow reading all he can about the history of mankind, studying geography and environmental influences, considering the policies of chancelleries, writing letters to various capitals of the world to keep in touch with informed opinion, only to rise to the supreme height or to be remembered for an article on “Snuff.” Very little exaggeration would be required to turn such a situation into a very laughable plot, and then the world would laugh not only at the poor wretch but with him. Farce is like charity in that it is kind and not puffed up. It has no malice for it eschews satire. It does not intend to hurt nor to wound, much less does it desire 1o hold anyone up to ridicule. The Farceur does not say Lord, what fools these mortals be!” He says instead: “We are all human beings, nothing godlike about us, but just ordinary sort of people with common shortcomings. Let us join together in a laugh about ourselves.” The French are very realistic people they have had to be to stand up to their great but disappointing experience. They are a great people who are just short of greatness in some essentials. They can produce Charlemagne, they can produce a Voltaire, a Calvin, a Pasteur, a Napoleon, a Victor Hugo, a Rodin. Their achievement in music is rich indeed. It. was a Frenchman who built the Suez Canal and foreshadowed the Panama Canal. Coming nearer home it was a Frenchman who gave refrigeration to New Zealand besides dictating what a farmer’s wife shall wear in Taranaki. Remarkable people the French! Charlemagne, however, established the Holy Roman Empire which was not Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire. Neither Voltaire, Calvin, Pasteur. Hugo or Rodin established a French culture; they contributed to a world stream and escaped the limitations of nationalism. Napoleon went out to found a French Empire anti succeeded in breakdown down any chances of that aim being accomplished while the French saw the establishing of the Canal pave the way for their losing grip on Egypt. In perfecting the refrigeration process the inventor concerned benefitted not France but chiefly the. British Empire. Such a people must find such a catalogue something of which to be very proud, but they cannot but either be angry to see others get the fruits, or else they must take refuge in laughter. Being highly intelligent people and aware that anger availath nothing, they choose to laugh. And so they laugh at the farce of life and make as good a job of that as they do in dressing their womenfolk. When a Frenchman laughs he is most serious and when he writes a farce he is most realistic, for by such means he preserves his sanity.

The more sane are the French the nearer they approach to an understanding of the English. The English have ever been fond of French farce, considering it typically English, which provides the French with yet another laugh. They know their Hamlet well enough to appreciate that “they are all mad in England.”