Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1994. [Vol. 2.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 22)
STUDIES - Judit Kádár: The Figure of 'Everyclown'in Jack Richardson's Gallows Humour
That Gallows Humour—as Richardson claims —follows the tradition of tragicomedy seems to be proved by the features of mordant wit, vaudeville and macabre elements, too. On the other hand, I reckon that comic elements do not overwhelm the general tone of the play, so one could assume it contains tragicomic elements rather than being a tragicomedy as such. As I mentioned, humor has a different function here in the Bergsonian sense with the liberating elevation and cathartic power of laughter. As Matthew Winston says: "The violent combination of opposing extremes unsettles us so that we do not become confused; this in turn disturbs our certainty of moral and social values and challenges our sense of a secure norm" (273). The clownery calls for a direct universal moral appeal; its sources are similar to satire, however —like in the Black Humor of Postmodernism —we cannot feel superior to the characters of the play since we are in the same grasp of our present existence. The whole effectmechanism is thoroughly explained in Winston's essay on Humor Noir, so here I would rather examine its definite presence in Gallows Humour. As far as the distinction of grotesque and absurd Black Humor presented in the play is concerned, the first seems to be overwhelming. Perhaps it is characteristic to the distinction observed by Szilassy between the two groups of the 1960s' dramas; namely the Rebellious versus the Intermedia dramas (56—7). The second group works more with absurd elements, while the first one utilizes the power of different veins of humor instead. Bearing the definition of Black Comedy in mind, one can find Gallows Humour to be very close to the influence of Kalka's philosophy, existentialism, the Irremediable exile' atmosphere of Camus, life originally presented as a 'tragic farce' by Ionesco and Beckett's tragicomic characters; but its application to Richardson's drama is questionable, since I doubt that he would agree with the impossibility of action. If not Black Comedy, then what is the genre-definition we could relate to this play? Szilassy's suggestion is that it is a Parable Play (37). It can be supported with the Sea-voyage allegory the Warden invokes as an apologia on conformism and outlaws. The parable also exists on the level of the plot since the 'stages' of the two parts are short, simple and have a moral point, 54
