"Farce treats the improbable as probable, the impossible as possible"
About this Quote
George P. Baker distills the essence of farce: it runs on a bold recalibration of plausibility. Where realism demands that events appear likely, farce constructs a world where the unlikely cascades into the inevitable. Coincidences multiply, doors slam in split-second rhythms, identities are mistaken and then mistaken again, and each new improbability not only arrives but feels, within the play’s fevered logic, perfectly expected. The impossible is not just permitted; it is engineered to feel necessary.
This is not sloppiness but craft. Baker, a seminal teacher of dramatic technique who trained generations of playwrights, underscores the genre’s formal rigor. Farce demands airtight structure, relentless pacing, and a precise accumulation of small lies, missed cues, and near misses that culminate in explosive consequences. The audience’s laughter depends on an implicit pact: accept the genre’s rules and watch how, step by step, the outlandish becomes the only outcome that could have happened. Aristotle prized what is probable or necessary; farce reframes necessity as a function of design rather than everyday logic.
The effect is double-edged. On the surface, farce delights in kinetic absurdity. Beneath, it satirizes social order by showing how brittle it is. A misdelivered letter or a concealed lover sends respectable households into chaos, suggesting that propriety is a thin veneer maintained by chance and pretense. By exaggerating cause and effect, farce makes visible the mechanisms people use to save face and preserve status, exposing hypocrisy with a grin rather than a scold.
Across Feydeau’s intricate clockworks, Plautus’s scheming servants, the Marx Brothers’ anarchic set pieces, or modern sitcom pileups, the same principle holds. Treat the improbable as probable, and a new reality takes hold, one where logic bends but internal consistency never breaks. The laughter comes from recognizing that, under pressure, the world we trust to be sensible can be remapped into a giddy, airtight maze where the impossible is the most natural thing on stage.
This is not sloppiness but craft. Baker, a seminal teacher of dramatic technique who trained generations of playwrights, underscores the genre’s formal rigor. Farce demands airtight structure, relentless pacing, and a precise accumulation of small lies, missed cues, and near misses that culminate in explosive consequences. The audience’s laughter depends on an implicit pact: accept the genre’s rules and watch how, step by step, the outlandish becomes the only outcome that could have happened. Aristotle prized what is probable or necessary; farce reframes necessity as a function of design rather than everyday logic.
The effect is double-edged. On the surface, farce delights in kinetic absurdity. Beneath, it satirizes social order by showing how brittle it is. A misdelivered letter or a concealed lover sends respectable households into chaos, suggesting that propriety is a thin veneer maintained by chance and pretense. By exaggerating cause and effect, farce makes visible the mechanisms people use to save face and preserve status, exposing hypocrisy with a grin rather than a scold.
Across Feydeau’s intricate clockworks, Plautus’s scheming servants, the Marx Brothers’ anarchic set pieces, or modern sitcom pileups, the same principle holds. Treat the improbable as probable, and a new reality takes hold, one where logic bends but internal consistency never breaks. The laughter comes from recognizing that, under pressure, the world we trust to be sensible can be remapped into a giddy, airtight maze where the impossible is the most natural thing on stage.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|
More Quotes by George
Add to List
