Slapstick is a type of broad, physical comedy involving exaggerated, boisterous actions (e.g. a pie in the face), farce, violenceand activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.
While the object from which the genre is derived dates from the Renaissance, theater historians argue that slapstick comedy has been at least somewhat present in almost all comedic genres since the rejuvenation of theater in church liturgical dramas in the Middle Ages.[citation needed] (Some argue[weasel words] for instances of it in Greek and Roman theater, as well.) Beating the devil off stage, for example, remained a stock comedic device in many otherwise serious religious plays.Shakespeare also incorporated many chase scenes and beatings into his comedies, such as in his playThe Comedy of Errors. Building on its later popularity in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century ethnic routines of the Americanvaudeville house, the style was explored extensively during the "golden era" of black and white, silent movies directed by figuresMack Sennett and Hal Roach and featuring such notables as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, the Keystone Kops, and The Three Stooges. Slapstick is also common inTom and Jerry and Looney Tunes Merrie Melodies. Silent slapstick comedy was also popular in early French films and included films by Max Linder and Charles Prince.
Slapstick continues to maintain a presence in modern comedy that draws upon its lineage, running in film from Buster Keaton and Louis de Funès to Mel Brooks to the Jackass movies to the Farrelly Brothers, and in live performance from Weber and Fields to Jackie Gleason to Rowan Atkinson.
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