The Author’s Farce is a play by Henry Fielding, first performed on 30 March 1730 at the Little Theatre, Haymarket. Written in response to the Theatre Royal’s rejection of his earlier plays, it was Fielding’s first theatrical success. The first and second acts deal with the attempts of the central character, Harry Luckless, to woo his landlady’s daughter. The third act becomes a play within a play, in which the characters in the puppet play are portrayed by humans. The play ends with a merging of the play’s and the puppet show’s realities.
About The Author’s Farce in brief
The Author’s Farce is a play by Henry Fielding, first performed on 30 March 1730 at the Little Theatre, Haymarket. Written in response to the Theatre Royal’s rejection of his earlier plays, it was Fielding’s first theatrical success. The first and second acts deal with the attempts of the central character, Harry Luckless, to woo his landlady’s daughter, and his efforts to make money by writing plays. In the second act, he finishes a puppet theatre play titled The Pleasures of the Town, about the Goddess Nonsense’s choice of a husband. After its rejection by one theatre, Luckless’s play is staged at another. The third act becomes a play within a play, in which the characters in the puppet play are portrayed by humans. The play ends with a merging of the play’s and the puppet show’s realities. It is now considered to be a critical success and a highly skilled satire. Although largely ignored by critics until the 20th century, most agree that the play is primarily a commentary on events in Fielding’s life, signalling his transition from older forms of comedy to the new satire of his contemporaries. It was altered for its run starting 21 April 1730 and again after the Actor Rebellion of 1733. Throughout its life, the play was coupled with several different plays, including The Cheats of Scapin and Fielded’s Tom Thumb. The plot serves as revenge for the Royal Theatre’s rejection.
However, this forced Fielding into being forced into this plot and into being into his plays, and being forced to write more plays. The author’s farce was written in five acts, but most of his plays were written in three. The opening introduces the main character and his attempts to woo Harriot, the daughter of hisLandlady Mrs. Moneywood. It begins when the Goddess of Nonsense chooses a mate from a series of suitors along the River Styx. All dunces, the suitors include Dr. Orator, Sir Farcical Comic, Mrs. Novel, Bookseller, Poet, Monsieur Pantomime, Don Tragedio and Signior Opera. The goddess eventually chooses a foreign castrato opera singer as her favourite, after he sings an aria about money, and dies giving birth to his child. At this revelation, the goddess becomes upset, but is quick to forgive. It follows that he is the prince of Bantam, and that Luckless is to be made the new king of the land of Brentford in reality in reality. The Author’sFarce is considered a classic satire of the London theatre scene, and is considered one of the best plays of the 1730s and 1740s. It has been described as a masterpiece of English comedy, and has been called the “greatest play of all time” by the eminent playwright William Makepeace Thackeray, who called it “one of the greatest plays ever written”
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This page is based on the article The Author’s Farce published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
