Reality as Fiction: The Plays and Playwrights of New Comedia

***Reality as Fiction: The Plays and Playwrights of New Comedia*** is a popular book written by the Sevician statesman, senator, and politician Calas Bride between 682 and 684 and officially published in the year 685 A.S. It is a single-volume book that covers the history of the form of theatrical comedy common known in Sevicia as New Comedia, which grew to become incredibly popular in the early to mid-seventh century.

The book, which is over 600 pages long, provides an in-depth background of the beginnings of the theatrical form, including its early adopters and pioneers, choosing to specifically focus on its three most influential propagators - Iophanus, Jane of Hearts, and Porsa. It gives a detailed biography of the three playwrights, their lives, and their works, before examining New Comedia through three distinct lenses: technical, historical, and cultural.

## Part I: The technical

The first part of the book examines the technical aspects of New Comedia as an art form. It compares and contrasts it to the most popular form of Sevician theatrical comedy (occasionally called Miosian Comedy, after its popularity first grew under the Mios dynasty of the fifth century). Bride notes the key differences between Miosian Comedy and New Comedia, a few namely:

* **Emphasis on real personalities and topical drama.** The majority of New Comedia plays used real figures in Sevician society, either directly as characters or through reference, and focused on relevant topics and issues pertaining to Sevician society in the mid seventh century.
* **Realist theatre.** A significant portion of New Comedia opt no to use comic or tragic masks, which up until that point had been a staple of Sevician theatre, both comedic and tragedic, and contain a less absurd, less fantastical version of presentational comedy.
* **Self-referential monologues.** Many plays in New Comedia featured no chorus or choral features. Instead, characters delivered comic monologues to the audience or to other characters, usually in poetic metre, that would often include references to both the characters themselves and the audience of the play.
* **Self-referential theatre.** A feature in more absurdist works of New Comedia, characters would occasionally mock the art of theatre itself, making themselves and the audience aware of their role in the play and their intentions in doing so.
* **Structural complexity.** New Comedia plays often had little rhyme or reason to their structure, with many either partially or entirely omitting elements such as the prologue, the epilogue, the climax, and (more commonly) choral interludes of any kind.

He uses specific case examples, such as the use of prolonged audience-facing monologues in Iophanus' *Handsome Tales*, including a single ten-minute monologue that serves as an interlude in place of a chorus, and the use of tragedy and tragic overtones in Jane of Hearts' *The Witches of Kaman,* to contrast against the usually absurdist humour of older forms of Sevician comedy theatre.

## Part II: The historical

In Part II, Bride provides a detailed and extensive overview of the history of New Comedia on stage, from its founding in the early to mid-620s to the innovation of the 630s, with seminal works such as Jane of Hearts' *Lords of Fish* and *Rex,* Porsa's *The Anacala,* and Iophanus' *Watchers.* Bride provides a brief analysis of each one, and includes a timeline of the theatrical form that spans more than 70 years.

## Part III: The cultural

Part III of the book focuses on the social and cultural influence of New Comedia on the capital of Morosea and Sevicia at large. It examines the lasting popularity of the most popular works of its three pioneering playwrights, in particular their intertextual weaving of dramatic, realistic themes and the politicisation of its comedy aspects. Bride draws comparisons again to older forms of Sevician comedy and remarks how the rise of more realistic, grounded, and politically-flavoured theatre coincided with changing attitudes among the wider Sevician populace, culminating in the 650s and 660s with the violent civil war known as the Anaean War. It goes to great lengths to emphasise the importance of New Comedia on Sevician social and cultural norms, in particular giving praise to its three key leaders.

## See also

New Comedia

Calas Bride, the author