Bergson and the Mechanics of the Bedroom Farce

Abstract

Whereas the earliest farces deal with human appetites on the most basic level, by the mid-nineteenth century these had been sublimated and incorporated into a newly mechanical format. Inaugurated by Eugène Labiche, and perfected by Alfred Hennequin and Georges Feydeau, these masterpieces of clockwork ingenuity would appear to be the inspiration for Henri Bergson’s theory of comedy. This article explores the evolution of this style of farce, and demonstrates how Bergson’s influential ideas were themselves influenced not only by the popularity of the boulevard theatre, but also by prevailing concepts of clinical psychology and a Symbolist aesthetic. It is further argued, however, that Bergson’s reduction of the comic butt to an automaton fails to account for the empathetic element: the heavy quantum of anxiety conveyed from character to spectator.