drawing-room comedy

American  

[draw-ing-room, -room] / ˈdrɔ ɪŋˌrum, -ˌrʊm /

noun

Theater.

1. a light, sophisticated comedy typically set in a drawing room with characters drawn from polite society.

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Etymology

Origin of drawing-room comedy

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

It’s a pleasurably discombobulating experience, sometimes playing like mordant drawing-room comedy and sometimes flirting with expressionist nightmare, as when Welles’ dark silhouette looms over a bedridden Mank and his mummified leg.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 6, 2020

It’s a cross between a drawing-room comedy and a Hobbesian parlor game, such as Assassin or Secret Hitler.

From The New Yorker • Oct. 14, 2019

The play’s dialogue and dramaturgy, however, are straight out of drawing-room comedy: Amusing zingers abound, and there’s an old-fashioned quality to the carefully crafted pattern of revelation, repercussion and tension.

From Washington Post • Nov. 20, 2018

It’s got funny moments, and moments of drawing-room comedy, everything really.

From New York Times • Jan. 14, 2015

But you tremble when she leaves it; you shudder throughout the awful drawing-room comedy of Blanche Ingram.

From The Three Brontës by Sinclair, May