The Art Of David Ives' One-act Comedy And Its Implication To The Chinese Comic Theatre

In this thesis, the comic art of David Ives, one of the most famous contemporary American playwrights, is looked into with reference to the development of comedy and universal comic devices, and a comparison and contrast between Ives' artistic creation and Chinese comedies is made in a hope that Ives' one-act plays may be of use for reference to Chinese comic drama. The thesis concludes that Ives can be of advice to Chinese playwrights in their understanding of the nature of comedy as an artistic genre and their selection and treatment of the subject matters in their comedies.Ives' comic art is examined from three aspects. The first is his choice of themes. Ives' has been very careful in choosing his themes. From the several plays analysed in this paper, the focus of his thematic matters have not been repeated. He has let the reader see his attitude toward love and personal relationship, people's psychological confusion in this industrialisd world, fantasy in people's ordinary life and human condition within certain restrictions. The second aspect of Ives' comic art is seen from the artistic devices he employs like exaggeration, incongruity, automatism, derision, parody and the musicality of his dialogue to bring out the strong and lasting comic and humorous effects of his plays. The third aspect of Ives comedic art is discussed through his attitude toward empathy, of which Ives has a sufficient understanding and extends it to the spaces between the playwright, actors, producers and audiences. Proper understanding and communication between them can be said to have contributed to the successes of Ives' comedies.Then after a brief look at the situation of comedy in China, a comparison and contrast between the themes of well-known Chinese comedies is done to discover that compared with Ives' plays, Chinese comedies tend to tackle on too many thematic matters in each short comedy without a focus. This has put Chinese comedies into a risky situation that their artistic value can be depreciated and their readers may be lost. The end of the examination suggests that Chinese comedy playwrights learn from Ives in concentrating on a topic in one short play.