Comic Event

<i>The Comic Event </i>approaches comedy as dynamic phenomenon that involves the gathering of elements of performance signifiers timings tones gestures previous comic bits and other self-conscious structures into an event? that triggers by virtue of a cut ? an expected/unexpected resolution.<br/><br/>Using examples from mainstream comedy <i>The Comic Event </i>progresses from the smallest comic moment-jokes bits-to the more complex-caricatures sketches sit-coms parody films and stand-up routines. Judith Roof builds on side comments from Henri Bergson's short treatise Laughter ? Sigmund Freud's <i>Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious</i> and various observations from Aristotle to establish comedy as a complex multifaceted practice. In seeing comedy as a gathering event that resolves with a cut ? Roof characterizes comedy not only by a predictable unpredictability occasioned by a sudden expected/unexpected insight but also by repetition seriality self-consciousness self-referentiality and an ourobouric return to a previous cut. This theory of comedy offers a way to understand the operation of a broad array of distinct comic occasions and aspects of performance in multiple contexts.