Travesty, or the Importance of Being Serious. On the Development of the Genre in English Drama

Travesty is the oldest literary genre, originating in antiquity, based on cross-dressing and cross-casting. Its origins go back to the ancient Greek poem Batrachomyomachy. The article traces the history of theatre travesty in British drama, the first experience of which historians consider to be The Love of the Beautiful Thisbe and Pyramus, a short and long drama, a cheerful tragedy in verse, performed by Nick Bottom’s troupe at the wedding of the Duke of Athens (A Midsummer Night’s Dream W. Shakespeare, 1595), and the first multi-act burlesque was The Knight of the Flaming Pestle by F. Beaumont (1607). Analysis of the Shakespearean burlesques of the 19th century, as well as the works of A. Jarry, E. Ionesco and T. Stoppard allows us to identify the main genre features of travesty: it is played out within the framework of a well-known literary plot, the transformation of which occurs in the sphere of language, compositional structure of the play, affects the images of the characters. In travesty, motifs of rehearsals and various types of theatrical performances are actively used, because it itself is a game with known literary material. Travesty is one of the main genres that reflects the literary-centrism of drama and its self-reflection, as well as the determining nature of the development of the play structure of the plot according to the principle of “the theatre within the theatre”.