Farce

You Can't Take It with You employs many elements of farce, which is defined most simply as broad comedy mixed with a healthy dose of improbability. Farce typically takes highly exaggerated characters and places them in unlikely situations. Key elements include witty wordplay and physical humor for broad comic effect to provoke simple, hearty laughter from the audience. Clearly, the dancing, xylophone-playing, firecracker-making members of the Vanderhof-Sycamore household are exaggerated, make witty verbal jokes, and engage in physical horseplay.

Romantic Comedy

The basic plot of You Can't Take It with You is that of a romantic comedy, a story of a love affair in which the couple must overcome obstacles usually with comic results before they can marry. Like many young lovers in Shakespearean comedy, Kaufman and Hart's Alice and Tony face difficulties on the path to their eventual happy ending. While straight-up romantic comedy is often derided...