Description
Book SynopsisTheater historian Jody Enders brings a dozen of the funniest French farces to contemporary English speaking audiences for the first time. This performance-friendly collection includes background information about the plays for medievalists, theater practitioners, and classic comedy lovers alike.
Trade Review"Scurrilous, sexy, stupid, satirical, scatological, side-splitting, and probably something else beginning with 's,' Jody Enders's translation of twelve French farces is a real discovery that goes a long way to readjusting our perception of the Middle Ages. Enders is a great champion of comedy at its most vulgar and hilarious. She points out that however silly or banal these farces may appear to us, they nonetheless confront the real controversies of their day over the law, politics, religion, social order, or the battle of the sexes. Thoroughly grounded in her academic approach to the subject, Enders nevertheless writes with liveliness and humor and wit. She is unafraid to reference modern comedy in her translations and insists on the primacy of performance in assessing these comedies from half a millennium ago." * Terry Jones *
Table of ContentsOn Abbreviations Short Titles, Notes, and Bibliography
Preface
Introduction
—History, Development, and the Actors of the Basoche
—Performance and Performance Records
—The Question of Genre
About This Translation
—Editions and Printed Sources
—Critical Apparatus
—Stage Directions
—Prose, Verse, and Music
—Repetition and Repetitiveness
—Language and Style
Brief Plot Summaries
THE PLAYS
Actors' Prologue
1. The Farce of the Fart [Farce nouvelle et fort joyeuse du Pect]
2. The Edict of Noée, or, Shut Up! It's the Farce of the Rights of Women [Farce des Drois de la Porte Bodès]
3. Confession Lessons, or, The Farce of the Lusty Husband Who Makes His Confession to a Woman, His Neighbor, Who Is Disguised as a Priest [Farce de celuy qui se confesse à sa voisine]
4. The Farce of the Student Who Failed His Priest Exam because He Didn't Know Who Was Buried in Grant's Tomb [Farce du Clerc qui fut refusé à estre prestre]
5. Blind Man's Buff, or, The Farce of "The Chokester" [Farce du Goguelu]
6. Playing Doctor, or, Taking the Plunge (The Farce of the Woman Whose Neighbor Gives Her an Enema) [Farce d'une Femme à qui son Voisin baille ung clistoire]
7. At Cross Purposes, or, The Farce of the Three Lovers of the Cross [Farce de trois Amoureux de la Croix]
8. Shit for Brains, or, The Party Pooper-Scooper [Farce de Tarabin-Tarabas]
9. Monk-ey Business, or, A Marvelous New Farce for Four Actors, to Wit, the Cobbler, the Monk, the Wife, and the Gatekeeper [Le Savetier, le Moyne, la Femme, et le Portier]
10. Getting Off on the Wrong Foot, or, Who's Minding the Whore? for Three Actors, to Wit, the Lover Minding the Store, the Cobbler, and His Wife [Farce de Celuy qui garde les Patins]
11. Cooch E. Whippet, or, The Farce of Martin of Cambray [Farce de Martin de Cambray]
12. Birdbrain: A Musical Comedy? or, School Is for the Birds [Farce joyeuse de Maistre Mimin]
Appendix: Scholarly References to Copyrighted Materials
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
