[A good Newspaper I have read]----The New York Times(1)

Farce is difficult to pin down. ''The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'' says simply that it's ''a dramatic work (usually short) intended only to excite laughter,'' and ''The Oxford Companion to the Theatre'' defines it as ''an extreme form of comedy in which laughter is raised at the expense of probability, particularly by horseplay and bodily assault.''

Whatever farce is, its nature is such that all sober definitions automatically contradict the essence of something that is too buoyant, too breathless and too volatile to be contained by mere words. The best one can do is describe it.

It's Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau, in one of his ''Pink Panther'' films, being blessedly unaware that the putty nose by which he's disguised himself is melting over his upper lip. It's Dudley Moore, in ''10,'' hiding in a large floral display in a church during a wedding ceremony, being stung by a bee. It's Richard Mulligan, as the suicidal movie producer in ''S.O.B.,'' attempting to hang himself on the second floor of his house, only to have the rope snap so that he crashes through to the first floor, to maim severely the Hollywood gossip columnist standing in his line of fall.(1982)

from: <The New York Times>