What are the comedy techniques?

Famous comedy artist Ma Ji pointed out when talking about the basic concept of comedy: "(Comedy) is the art of making people laugh by organizing a series of peculiar 'baggage', the baggage referred to here is the baggage of the art of language, and the language referred to here is the language of the art of baggage ......, baggage, and laughter, can be said to be the three major elements of the art of comedy, and are indispensable." (Quoted from Ma Ji's "Thirty Years of Looking Back and Spitting It Out" in "Quartet", No. 2, 1987).

In the three elements he listed, language and laughter are also found in some other comedy arts, and only baggage is unique to the art of xiangsheng. Baggage is the most important in the art of comedy. Therefore, analyzing the content and form of baggage is the key to study the art of comedy.

The word "baggage" is a figurative word, which actually refers to the process of the brewing and development of comedic conflicts in comedy. The so-called "three turns and four shakes" is the structure of the comic baggage often used. Among them, the "three flip" refers to the repeated rendering and emphasizing of the illusion of contradiction; the "four shake" refers to the revelation of the truth of the contradiction after the three flip.

The characteristic of comedy contradiction is "to cover up one's own essence with the illusion of another essence" (quoted from Marx's "Introduction" in the Collected Works of Man, vol. 1, p. 5), so in comedy contradiction, there are many kinds of illusions. Falsehood is in fact a phenomenon characterized by its ability to draw water to appearances that are contrary to (or divergent from) its essence, and yet the falsehood reflects the essence in its own peculiar way in a most profound way.

Thus, the real comedy contradiction is characterized by the unexpected and reasonable. In comic duologue, the two sides of the comedic contradiction - the burden (phenomenon and essence, etc.) - are held by the two sides of the comedian, and the contradiction is gradually revealed through dialog. Comedic art techniques (such as exaggeration, misunderstanding, coincidence, etc.) are widely used in various comedic arts and are not unique to comedy.

However, comedy has its own characteristics when using these techniques. For example, many plays and movies use visual images to form misunderstandings (the films "The Great Dictator" and "The Black Tulip" all feature two people who look like each other), whereas comedies rely on dialogues when using misunderstandings.

For example, in "Changing Careers," when Gong Yunfu, an artist, changes his profession to selling vegetables, he says, "Once he puts the pick on, he touches his shoulder, and it hurts! He remembered the call of "Encountering the Queen": 'Alas, bitter wow! The old lady heard: 'Oh! Cucumber bitter, don't.'" Obviously, this package employs the technique of misunderstanding, which is caused through the dialog between the characters. Leaving the two sides of the dialog, it is impossible to cause misunderstanding.

The organization of baggage through dialogues is the most used and important method in comedy. This is true not only in the type of "son and mother comedy" but also in the type of "head sinking" comedy.

This is true not only in duologue, but also in monologue. For example, in the monologue "Pearl, Jade and White Jade Soup", the burden of saving the bottom is made up of the dialogues between the emperor Zhu Yuanzhang and his ministers, and this kind of burden made up of dialogues abounds in the works of comedy, and the list is endless.

Dialogue is not only reflected in the organization of the baggage, but also in the use of various artistic means of comedy.

Speaking, learning, teasing and singing are the four most basic artistic means of comedy, with "speaking" being the telling of jokes and tongue-twisters, and "learning" being the imitation of various cries, singing and the language of various characters, as well as the imitation of the language of various localities. "Saying" is to tell jokes and tongue twisters, "Learning" is to imitate various hawking voices, singing voices and the language of various characters, as well as to imitate local operas. "Joking" is to catch jokes and make people laugh, and "singing" refers specifically to singing the lyrics of Pacific songs. The use of these artistic means is only in line with the scope of the dialog in accordance with the laws of the art of comedy creation.

Expanded:

History of Development:

Early Development

The word "Xiangsheng" (相声), anciently used as Xiangsheng (象声), originally referred to the simulation of other people, and was also known as next-door Xiangsheng (隔壁相声). By the further evolution of folk rap in northern China, and incorporating the formation of the form by the imitation of ventriloquism and other forms of art, generally believed to be formed in the Qing Dynasty during the Xianfeng, Tongzhi. It is a form of opera in which jokes or comical questions and answers are told to make the audience laugh.

To the early years of the Republic of China, Xiangsheng gradually developed from a person copying ventriloquism to a single joke, and the name was then changed to Xiangsheng. After the gradual development of one-word comedy, counterpart comedy, group comedy, synthesized into a veritable comedy. After years of development, the counterpoint eventually became the most popular form of comedy.

During the late Qing Dynasty, the comedy developed a modern character and style. It was mainly written in Beijing dialect, but there were also "dialect comedies" in different parts of the country.

The process of the formation of the comedy widely absorbed ventriloquism, storytelling and other arts, the Zhuang in harmony, to satirical jokes to show the truth, goodness and beauty, in order to attract laughter as an artistic characteristic; to "say, learn, tease, sing" as the main artistic means.