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

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 also contains occasional germs of the subtle drawing-room comedy that in the nineteenth century constituted such a crucial development for the novel.

From The New Yorker • May 16, 2016

A madcap New York drawing-room comedy that played out like a classic Hollywood farce saw "The Last Picture Show" director Peter Bogdanovich in sharp comedic form at the Venice Film Festival on Friday.

From Reuters • Aug. 29, 2014

You didn't get to the theatre at 8.30, wait for the curtain to rise on a thin-spun drawing-room comedy at 8.45, and begin hunting for your wraps at 10.35.

From Washington Square Plays by Various