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TheEdithorial
Saturday,30May2015

Comedy's2,500thBirthday

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This week has been all

about

comedy.

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Wednesday I spent my
birthday present money
rediscovering
therapeutic

the

power

of

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laughter at the musical

AboutMe

SupremelyAristophanic'JosephSmith,AmericanMoses'number

BlogArchive

Book of Mormon. My rib

2015(22)
May(5)

cage ached and my mascara ran after two straight hours of

Comedy's
2,500th
Birthday

hilarity.
EdithHall
Follow

The work is a trenchant satire on imperialism. Its climaxthe

Ugandan villagers riotously obscene musicalpageant reprise of the
Mormon foundation story, complete with artificial phalluses and
frogshaggingis the nearest thing any of us will ever experience to
Greek Old Comedy. This is not surprising, given that Trey Parker (of
South Park), one of Book of Mormons creators, has previously
milked an ancient Greek text, the Odyssey, in his cultish Cannibal:
the Musical!

59

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WHYIHATE
THEMYTH
OF
PHAEDRA
AND
HIPPOLYT
US
Robots&
Utopia
Ancient&
Modern
TheWoman
Demosthen
esToldto
Runfor
President
Odysseus,the
EU,&the
Dispossess
edof
Lampedus
a
April(4)

And Ive achieved a longheld ambition by

making it onto the cover of the June issue of
the admirable magazine History Today with

March(4)
February(4)
January(5)
2014(52)

an article about the birthday of comedy. It

2013(52)

was exactly 2,500 years ago, in 486 BCE, that

2011(15)

comic

theatre

was

born

when

it

was

integrated, for the very first time, in the

drama competitions of the democratic Athenian state. In an
outdoor theatre in the sanctuary of the winegod Dionysus, a
musical chorus of men dressed in obscene costumes accompanied
knockabout actors who yelled versified abuse at an audience of
tipsy citizens.

2012(56)

The

inventor

of

comic

theatre was a man called

Sousarion. The prize for the
best comedy in that first
competition was a basket of
figs and no fewer than forty
litres of wine. The actors
will have worked up a thirst
mocking anybody who put
Whatisinthebasketonhishead?Frogs?Figs?

their

head

about

the

parapet in public life. They talked freely about sleaze, corruption,

and personal toilet habits. They subjected gods and powerful
humans to trial by vitriolic laughter which makes most modern
equivalentsPrivate Eye, Spitting Image, Not the Nine Oclock
Newslook

halfhearted

in

comparison.

Eleven

Athenian

democratic comedies survive, all by one dramatist, Aristophanes.

In 486 BC, when
that

epoch

making

first

competition
comic
was
comic

in

theatre
held,

attitude

to life was of
course not new.
The

TheActorontherightplaysaKingorTyrant(eagletoppedsceptre)

ancient

Greeks were cracking jokes from the first minute in history when
we can hear their voices: the Cretans who lived in BronzeAge
Knossos must have had their tongues in their Mycenaean cheeks
when their called their ploughing cows Nimble, Swift and
Chatterbox, names we can read in the early script, Linear B.
Celebrants of festivals connected with fertility and viticulture had
for centuries hurled abuse at local individuals while they processed
in mummers costumes through the villages. The stem kom in
komoidia, comedy, means revel or carousal, while also
sounding like the Greek word for an unwalled rural village:
komoidia thus means a revelode, with rustic overtones.

But ad hominem satire incorporated into a musical drama, along

with a wildly imaginative plotline,

was something completely new. A
brilliant idea which has had a long
future. Any tips on shows offering
Aristophanic laughter as hardcore
as Book of Mormon will be very
gratefully received.

PostedbyEdithHallat05:38

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