drawing-room comedy

[ draw-ing-room, -room ]

noun

, Theater.

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of drawing-room comedy¹

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

This workshop production pits two texts head-to-head: Oscar Wilde’s impeccable drawing-room comedy “The Importance of Being Earnest” and Moisés Kaufman’s 1997 play “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde,” which draws from court transcripts and newspaper articles to tell the story of Wilde’s prosecution for homosexuality.

From Seattle Times

It “is a most delightfully acted and gracefully entertaining film, fashioned much in the manner of a stage drawing-room comedy, that seems to be about something much more serious and challenging than it actually is,” Bosley Crowther wrote in his review for The New York Times.

From New York Times

A key character in Philip Barry’s 1928 drawing-room comedy “Holiday,” now on view at Arena Stage in a creaky if ably acted production, Johnny is a rising Wall Street lawyer who aims to quit working, so as to experience life’s fullness and find his own purpose.

From Washington Post

“The Philadelphia Story,” that arch drawing-room comedy starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, was set in Radnor, and its public high school served as the inspiration for Rydell High in the film version of “Grease,” directed by a 1964 graduate, Randal Kleiser.

From New York Times

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