Books & Culture Corner: Divine Comedy at the Cineplex - Books & Culture:

"Austin lamented the loss of physical comedy, a training forged onstage, before live theatre audiences. 'Physical comedy,' says Austin, 'begins with the recognition that we're not in control of the world. It acknowledges the perpetual embarrassment of the body, but affirms the physicalness of the Incarnation—the goodness of our being in the face of an absurd world where animals bite, buildings fall, and cars wreck.'

He went on to trace the roots of comedy back to Plato: 'We laugh because of the gap between the real and the ideal, between ourselves and God, especially when we take ourselves too seriously.'"