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CHAPTER LVII 281 in real life the determined woman who grabs a man and literally drags him off to the altar does not exist. She is more subtle in her methods. In a light comedy such a type would not be accepted. In farce she is a time-honored standby. In comedy she is tactical rather than tackling. In farce she may follow the football method. 2. It is an accepted rule in writing plays of any sort that the busi- ness must match the type of plot. You will not play drama with the slight exaggeration of melodrama, so in comedy you follow natural action and in farce emphasize it in a degree to suit the emphasis of the plot. 3. Farce is frankly created to induce laughter and not to represent life with strict fidelity. You are not required to believe the story so long as you laugh at it; indeed you are supposed to derive a part of your enjoyment from this emphasis just as you are amused and not disgusted with the impossible fables ascribed to the Baron Mun- chausen. You do not for a moment believe the tales of Munchausen. You love him for the ingenious liar that he shows himself to be. 4. But it must be understood that this latitude must not lead to the play that is merely silly or untrue. Your ingenuity must excuse your departure from the truth. It is not the extravagance alone but the cleverness of the extravagance that has preserved the Munchausen tales as a classic where so many clumsy imitations have been com- pletely forgotten. Just because you distort you must be unusually careful to be clever. Part of the appeal of the story must come from the skill with which you transform fact and give it another semblance. 5. Farce must be as intelligently written as comedy. The more foolish you become, the more careful you must be not to become a fool. You must offer a well planned plot, develop your theme with unusual care and seemingly be unconscious of the fact that you are writing caricature and not fact. The chief difference is that where you state your comedy factors in straight terms you enlarge upon your farcical facts. In comedy you say that your niaiden lady is anxious to find a spouse. In farce you say, instead, that she is de- termined to catch a husband. The action follows the same general lines, but where your comedy character will exercise all her fancied arts of coquetry, the farcical lady employs main strength and brute force. In comedy a man runs out of a house and down a short flight of steps. In farce he is kicked through the door and thrown down the steps, but there must be found a good reason for the ejectment. This is the saving clause that keeps farce foolery and not plain fool- ishness. 6. Slapstick is merely the highest development or extension of farce. In farce a man is kicked through a door and thrown down the steps. In slapstick the man who throws him out falls down after him and perhaps they overturn another person coming up. If there is no one to throw the man down the steps, then he trips and falls anyway. If the ejector does not fall down the steps after the victim, then the