A Weird Request

[Farmer]

Dear reader

I am at a lost and feel that I have walked into a blind alley in my search for a particular text, and I really hope that someone here could help me find its name.

I have heard about a book along time ago, I strongly believe it to be a play, and the only thing I know about it is that one of the characters (the main character perhaps) plays the role as the comical element of the text, and that his feelings are not revealed until the end (?) of the text, when in a soliloquy (?) he talks about them and it turns out that the guy the reader has laughed at throughout the play is depressed/sad, surprising the reader and making her/him think (we often laugh even when we do not know a person’s story).

I realise how weird my question sounds, yet I hope you will help me.
I know I do not give you much to work with, but if my suspicions are correct, this is a quite famous play, and so I assume that someone here knows exactly what I am talking about if I am lucky.

[kelby_lake]

Sounds similar to The Entertainer by John Osborne, except the lead works in music hall, like a singing stand-up and it's slowly revealed that he's pretty pathetic.

[Farmer]

Dear kelby_lake

Thank you for your quick reply.
I do not think that is the play I am looking for, however, with the poor, obscure description I have provided, I should be grateful for anyone trying to help at all, and I am of course thankful!
Again, thank you very much!

[kelby_lake]

I'm quite intrigued now as to the play. So it's a comic character who actually turns out to be depressed?

Do you remember the time period it was set in, or the country?

[Madame X]

L’Homme qui rit, a.k.a. The Man who Laughs, by one Victor Hugo? On the one hand it makes sense, on the other, it doesn’t quite mesh with your description; i.e., the reader is never in the dark about Gwynplaine’s ever-so rich and varied emotional states, as it were (soliloquies and inner monologues abound), hence, there exists no grand turning point wherein the reader is suddenly conscious of having been dealing with an entirely different character altogether, -one who is, in truth, quite diametrically opposed to his former representation- if ya catch my drift...buuuut allowances can be made for a bit of senility in retrospect, if such is the case. :p

[Farmer]

Dear Madame X

First of, let me admit that I laughed whole-heartedly at your last sentence. Thank you for giving me the excuse that I needed, for I could not come up with one myself, though I tried.

As far as the text is concerned, I shall take a dive into the dust as soon as possible, but I wanted to thank you before I begin searching for the suggested work.

So far, I am the only man who laughs.

Also let me apologise for dragging you two into this private mystery. Another annoyance, almost as great as the mystery itself, is that I do in fact know another person who has read this text, but I am now in a country far away and I have been, fruitlessly, trying to make contact with him. I am sure this is all very interesting for you to read about.....


I'm quite intrigued now as to the play. So it's a comic character who actually turns out to be depressed?

Do you remember the time period it was set in, or the country?

Unfortunately, I do not remember. Although it was as you describe, someone the reader laughs at throughout the text, and then, as I recall, near the end, he reveals to us his inner emotions, filling the reader with shame and a new awareness. Perhaps an analog, though not fully, would be one recent highly commercialised British talent, who simply could not be able to sing based on the simple logic that one who looks like she does cannot sing (where the correlation between appearance and artistic talent is I have no clue about, but I find it hard to believe that the judges in that show have ever seen an opera if that is their reasoning).

[kelby_lake]

Any other characters you remember?

Might be a Russian play- they're often tragicomic. A Chekhov play?

[Farmer]

I have still not had any luck finding out about this, I am almost beginning to fear that this is my imagination playing evil tricks on me. For now I will raise the white flag, too much time has been consumed already, and I do not want to use more of yours. Of course I promise you that I will tell you should I ever find the text (if it exists), but for now all I can do is to thank you very much for trying to help me. I really appreciate it.