farceur

They’re all presented on the page by an inspired farceur whose exquisitely penned prose seems effortless, but belies the painstaking craftsmanship needed to make his split-second timing come off.

With “Topper,” “The Awful Truth,” and “Bringing Up Baby,” the recently christened Cary Grant found his truest expression as farceur: virile and subtle, intelligent and flummoxed and — crucially — not quite believing in his own attractiveness.

This rather raises the question: what might life be like in a country helmed by a genuinely funny comedian, rather than a farceur who dreams of being taken seriously?

In Larissa FastHorse’s “The Thanksgiving Play,” which opened on Monday at Playwrights Horizons, the familiar, whitewashed story of Pilgrims and Native Americans chowing down together gets a delicious roasting from expert farceurs.

I mean the sort of tickling administered by a team of master farceurs who frisk you into a state of sustained laughter, as involuntary and contented as the purr of a kitten at play.