Irony is a tragic comedy and a comic tragedy. A drama is either a comedy or a tragedy, unless I see the irony.
It requires both wit & wisdom to intuitively see the irony of a drama. Both wit & wisdom are intuitive in nature. Unless I see the irony in life, I will not know whether to laugh or cry. I laugh or cry at the drama because I either see the wisdom or I am at my wit’s end.
Seeing the irony of what is occurring in life allows a paradox that life can be experienced as either happy or sad, pleasurable or painful, fun or miserable, funny ha! ha! or funny peculiar. It is ironic that good things can happen in a wrong way and bad things can happen in the right way. When I make a judgment as to whether what is happening is good or bad, I can either laugh with tears of joy or cry with tears of sadness.
When I see the irony of life, I observe that it can be both right & wrong and neither good nor bad. I just intuitively see the irony of the situation, without any judgment of its effect.
The irony of life is that personal perspective can be both positive & negative. Ironically, irony being neutral is neither positive nor negative; it just is, ironic.
The belief that criticism can be good & bad, is an irony that is no laughing matter. It is ironic that I laugh with embarrassment and I cry with humiliation, yet they are both perceived to be negative emotional conditions. Irony just sees a drama as a drama and makes no judgment of its cause or effect.
The role of both a dramatic actor and a comedian is to portray and express the irony of people’s lives. Their job is to remind us that when drama becomes a tragedy, then comedy relieves the pain by rebalancing with irony.
Comedy duos have a foolish comedian and a tragic straight man. Slapstick comedy is about a foolish clown acting out tragic dramas. Tommy Cooper, a tragic magician and very funny comic, ironically died on stage doing what he loved most. Stand up comics retell the dramas and the tragedies of life, in a humorous & funny way.
Irony allows us to realise that our lives are neither foolish nor tragic, when we re-balance our perspective in a non dramatic way.