Shakespeare's Comedies: Laugh Out Loud Funny Or Knowing Chuckle Funny?

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 2/5/06 at 10:54pm

For me, it pretty much depends. A Midsummer Night's Dream is friggin' hilarious (Gotta love those "ass" puns and the Pyramus and Thisbe play) but The Tempest is a bit...eh. (But then again, the version of the Tempest that I saw was not that great.)

[BroadwayGirl107]

Posted: 2/5/06 at 10:58pm

The only production of A Midsummer Night's Dream I've ever seen was Julliard's production in November, and it was basically one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my entire life. Let's just say they modernized it and really played up some of the comedy. I'm not sure if I just saw a "normal" production of it, if I'd be AS amused.
Updated On: 2/5/06 at 10:58 PM

[AnotherDay46]

Posted: 2/5/06 at 11:09pm

When I saw it I thought it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen.

[Overthemoon6]

Posted: 2/5/06 at 11:13pm

A Midsummer Night's Dream is soooo funny!! I didn't think that Much Ado About Nothing was that funny though.

[Zyla]

Posted: 2/5/06 at 11:22pm

"The Tempest", like many of Shakespeare's later plays, is often considered a romance or tragicomedy rather than a typical comedy.
I'm taking a Shakespeare class this semester, and A Midsummer Night's Dream was the first play we read, so we talked quite a bit about comedy, especially in a 1600s context (as if we really can know). One of the points that the prof mentioned concerned the fact that women weren't allowed to act; this was used for comedic purposes. A boy in women's clothing could, to paraphrase my prof, "make 'Hamlet' a rollicking good time."
Plus, if you read one of the plays, there are dirty jokes and double entendres everywhere; every other footnote is along the lines of "Slang for 'codpiece'". Then again, I can't help but wonder if that's not partly due to overactive imaginations of modern editors.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 2/5/06 at 11:25pm

I do find it funny when characters speak to the audience and beg for applause. I understand that it was common for plays to do this back in the day, but it just seems amusing when it is done now. I mean, imagine if every movie/play ended like that. If all of the characters of Syriana looked straight into the camera and asked "If we are friends, then please give us applause!"

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/5/06 at 11:30pm

Like anything else, it depends entirely on the production as to whether or not a given show is funny or not. I've seen laugh out loud funny productions of Taming of the Shrew, Midsummer, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Comedy of Errors in the past, and I've seen painfully dull, unfunny and uninteresting productions of all of those same shows. Bad direction and mediocre acting will sink even the greatest of masterpieces and Shakespeare is victimized by inferior or wrong-headed productions than any other playwright. But, when it works, there's nothing better.

[halyiaganitefiz]

Posted: 2/5/06 at 11:37pm

Very well said, Margo. I agree. It all depends. Especially with the older pieces of theatre, you can't really feel the whole thing unless you're right there at a production. Reading them gives you the knowing chuckle bit, but seeing it can get you to pee your pants. This goes for Molière, too; I have read several of his things and groaned and chuckled out loud, but when I saw Tartuffe at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI, I definitely fell out of my seat, squirming with laughter.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 2/6/06 at 12:17am

I've seen a ton of performances of Midsummer specifically. It seems that there's two versions of "good productions": The kind that farces it up into a comedy and the kind that moves in into more of a romance. Both can work well. But with Midsummer (and Shrew, Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night, Much Ado, a few others) you can occasionally find a production that focuses mostly of the humor and find it to be one of the most hilarious evenings of theatre.

[zzannahk]

Posted: 2/6/06 at 12:27am

Love Labours Lost is laugh out loud, when the actors are aware of what they're saying and having a good time with it.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 2/6/06 at 12:27am

what can you guys tell me about the Tempest? I haven't read it yet - i'm going to - but my school's doing it next year and I just wanted to know a little about it. Is it a comedy? drama? etc.

[zzannahk]

Posted: 2/6/06 at 12:31am

the tempest has a really cool avant-garde version, we watched it for my shakespeare class. some of the characters are funny, but not the play.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6305739862?v=glance

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 2/6/06 at 12:35am

zzannahk, really? i love avant-garde type theater. sweet.

[zzannahk]

Posted: 2/6/06 at 12:52am

most of my class liked it, some were a little scared by it. my professor didn't want to show us all the dare-i-say bad Kenneth Branagh movies, so broadened our horizons