"The Farce of the Fart" and Other Ribaldries: Twelve Medieval French Plays in Modern English by Jody Enders
Noah D. Guynn
Reviewed by: "The Farce of the Fart" and Other Ribaldries: Twelve Medieval French Plays in Modern English by Jody Enders Noah D. Guynn (bio) Enders, . English. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Pp. xv + 477. $49.95 cloth, $29.95 paper, eBook. It is a little-known fact that medieval farce played major role making modern drama. In striving to break with neoclassical aesthetic canons, avant-garde playwrights often drew inspiration from genres their predecessors had considered crude, seditious, immoral, being most obvious offender against bienséance. Dario Fo's link farceurs (and other "jesters who defame insult") well established, largely because Fo himself has so emphasized deep historical roots "the tricks trade." But how many people will realize, or bother recall, J. M. Synge's Well Saints (1905) loosely based on Andrieu de La Vigne's L'aveugle et le boiteux (1496); delirious nonsense speech Eugène Ionesco's cantatrice chauve (1950) leçon (1951) indebted fantaisie verbale tricksters fools; 1969 San Francisco Mime Troupe toured production mid-fifteenth-century Maistre Pierre Pathelin and, one instance, was able perform it only thanks an ACLU lawsuit anticensorship demonstration; Zulu Sofola's Wizard Law (1975) rewrites depict corruption contemporary Nigerian society capacity poor resist economic inequality using farcical antics ("wizardry")? Indeed, scratch surface discover innovations political strategies characterize twentieth-century drama are either directly indirectly tied stage, therefore deeply beholden scholars like Louis Petit Julleville Gustave Cohen, brought light hundreds plays been forgotten archives, as thespians Cohen his troupe Théophiliens, performed some those plays, usually for first time centuries. Expressly written stage classroom mind, now available affordable paperback eBook formats, Enders's Fart Ribaldries aims make similar contribution theater practice [End Page 393] performance studies offering access twelve ingenious spirited farces English-speaking scholars, students, playwrights, directors, actors, spectators. With Jelle Koopmans's recent rediscovery publication Recueil Florence, collection fifty-three mysteriously went missing 1920s, can no longer complain lack reliable critical editions. But, quote "What about all speakers out there? We weren't going leave fun were we?" (xi). thirty years' experience field apparently irrepressible comic flair, allows her readers "take [farce's] humor seriously" but without second allowing intellectual concerns "suck right thing" (xii, xiii). breezy incisive prefatory material, notes, endnotes, she attends vulgar, provocative, gut-busting ways which "satirizes social life," exploring themes ranging "[f]rom politics religion, learning litigiousness, marriage class, theology sexuality" (xii). wisely chosen route "adapted" rather than "literal" (33) translations, preserving farce's characteristic exuberance inserting, where appropriate, "an extra line, term, mimed scene, nonspeaking character, possible musical number, name (especially unnamed female characters)" (35). Her aim throughout living tradition again, remains imbued "precious essence" genre also merges gleefully ironically...
Comparative Drama