Throw a bunch of characters on a stage with an inordinate number of doors, create an improbable situation, raise the stakes impossibly high, toss in a few pratfalls, keep it all going at a fast clip, ...

Farce, declares the Encyclopædia Britannica, is “a form of the comic in dramatic art, the object of which is to excite laughter by ridiculous situations and incidents.” I would go further: farce is ...