Parades and Proverbs

These eight short plays by Louis Carmontelle, Thomas Gueulette, Jan Potocki, and Russian Empress Catherine II the Great (of all people!) were all the rage in eighteenth-century France—short skits that could easily be performed by amateur companies. Since they weren't writing "literature," the authors of these pieces could create anything without adhering to the "dramatic rules." And invent they did! Bawdy, even obscene humor permeates many of these works. All of them are wacky, anything-for-a-laugh comedies with little or no attention paid to logic, plots, or themes--just a series of zany, lewd, funny actions near enough to reality to be slightly discomfiting to the popular audiences who loved them. And they still remain as sidesplitting today as they were 200 years ago!