Abstract
This paper sets out to examine the transformation of comedy in the history of European theatre. Musical performance extends the semiotic space of the original genre into a field of fluid and open meanings and signs incorporating and suggesting many interpretations, some of which are ironic. It is argued in contemporary aesthetics that, on the one hand, art cannot exist without a discourse interpreting it, while on the other, there exists the demand to avoid interpretation, which at once legitimizes the aesthetic effect and castrates the object of art. Provocation is used as an instrument for solving the problems of observing the object of art in a new way and understanding modern reality, and provocation is not complete without irony and self-irony. Wit, irony, and comicality are transformed as fitting into the style of the absurd and deconstructing the border between the funny and the serious. The purpose of such provocations is to put the viewer into a position of uncertainty and aesthetic shock, and this stupor inexorably leads the beholder to encounter the object of art and nurtures a new understanding of their own self. This clash of the spectator’s viewpoint created by provocative shows dispossesses theatre productions of the status of “museum exhibits”. This paper will examine the organicness of elements of the laughter culture and comic devices for musical and dramatic theatre.
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