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CHAPTER LV COMEDY DRAMA COMEDY DRAMA is the result of the union of drama or melo- drama with comedy. Generally it is melodrama, since the de- parture from straight dramatic form is apt to result in the pre- dominance of the melodramatic feature. This is so frequently the case that it would be proper to define comedy drama as melodrama in which the intensity of the situations is lightened or relieved by the in- jection of humorous material. By many it is preferred to drama or melodrama because it provides both thrills and laughter. 2. The drama of the stage often offers what is technically known as the comedy relief, generally a pair of young lovers, a comedy servant or an eccentric character, the office of these persons being to lighten the tension and keep back the rising action until the proper time. Photoplay is so brief and so direct that the employment of a comedy relief as a regular factor of the drama is avoided or replaced where necessary by some single touch. In comedy drama the purpose of the comedy is not so much to hold back the tension as to avoid it. The entire action is in a lighter key. Comedy drama is more apt to sug- gest a comedy with dramatic touches than the reverse. It is largely a matter of proportion, but the altering of proportion gives a marked difference in the form. 3. For the purpose of comparison, let us take a story based on lip reading. This is to be used as a basis for a play. Perhaps a drama of this topic might read: Mary Harding is wealthy, but she is not good looking and is fur- ther afflicted with a hardness of hearing which she seeks to conceal through her skill in lip reading. This she does so successfully that only a few of her most intimate friends are aware of her deficiency. She meets Jack Barrows, a handsome young scapegrace, who prompt- ly makes violent love to her and who succeeds in persuading her that he loves her for herself and not because of her fortune. Like most deaf persons, Mary lives largely within herself and to this first and great love she gives her heart and soul. Next to her love for Jack comes her love for her half-sister, Ruth, daughter of her father by a second wife. Mary's fortune has been inherited from her own mother and to this Ruth has no claim. Her father died poor. She is intensely happy in her love until one day she oversees Jack and Ruth. Jack does not know of her skill as a lip reader and Ruth forgets. They are talking of their love and Jack is explaining that he is marrying Mary for her money alone and that he loves only Ruth. The girl tries to persuade him to give up Mary and face poverty with her. To this Jack will not consent, declaring that he cannot economize and be happy. Mary secretly draws from her fortune a sum sufficient to give her a modest income. The rest she wills to Ruth and then arranges a fictitious suicide which is ac- cepted without question. Jack and Ruth marry, while Mary, in her new life, finds easement for her sorrow in making lighter the bur- dens of others. 270