SOURCE: Mason, Jeffrey D. “The Fool and the Clown: The Ironic Vision of George S. Kaufman.” In Farce, pp. 205-217. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

In the following essay, Mason examines Kaufman's use of fools and clowns, with particular focus on his use of the Marx Brothers in his comedies.

Theater suggests two coextensive worlds. An actor is both himself and the character he plays; a stage is both a platform and an illusion. While all art engages in the creative interpretation of the human condition, theater actually re-enacts life, introducing the constant, tantalizing risk that the distance and the distinction between art and life will diminish to the vanishing point.

The farceur revels in reducing that distance to an excruciating minimum, forcing the audience to accept a double vision that will never quite come into focus. All theater employs artifice, contrivance and convention, but while comedy and...