What Is Drama?

Dramatic Structure

Tragedy

Comedy

Modern Drama

Performance of a Play

Setting the Stage

The Characters

The Audience

Practice

Drama

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A drama is a story enacted onstage for a live audience.

[End of Section]Origins of Drama

What Is Drama?

Like the plot of a story, the plot of a play involves characters who face a problem or conflict.

Climaxpoint of highest tension;

action determines how the conflict will be resolved

Resolutionconflict is resolved;play ends

Complicationstension builds

Expositioncharacters and conflict are introduced [End of Section]

Dramatic Structure

A tragedy is a play that ends unhappily.

• Tragedies pit human limitations against the larger forces of destiny.

right and wrong

justice and injustice

life and death

Tragedy

• Most classic Greek tragedies deal with serious, universal themes such as

The protagonist of most classical tragedies is a tragic hero. This hero

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• is noble and in many ways admirable

• has a tragic flaw, a personal failing that leads to a tragic end

rebelliousness

jealousy

pride

Tragedy

A comedy is a play that ends happily. The plot usually centers on a romantic conflict.

boy meets girl boy loses girl boy wins girl

Modern comedies

Comedy

The main characters in a comedy could be anyone:

nobility servantstownspeople

Comedy

• Comic complications always occur before the conflict is resolved.

• In most cases, the play ends with a wedding.

Comedy

Quick Check How can you tell this play is a comedy? What is the most likely outcome?

Comedy

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MABEL CHILTERN. How horrid you have been! You have never talked to me the whole evening! LORD GORING. How could I? You went away with the child-diplomatist.

MABEL CHILTERN. You might have followed us. Pursuit would have been only polite. I don't think I like you at all this evening!

LORD GORING. I like you immensely. from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

A modern play

• usually is about ordinary people

• may be tragedy, comedy, or a mixture of the two

• usually focuses on personal issues

Modern Drama

Modern playwrights often experiment with unconventional plot structures.

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Modern Drama

long flashbacksmusic

visual projections of a character’s private thoughts

When you read a play, remember that it is meant to be performed for an audience.

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Stage Directions

Playwright describes setting and characters’ actions and manner.

[Wyona is sitting on the couch. She sees Paul and jumps to her feet.]Wyona. [Angrily.] What do you want?

Performance of a Play

Performance

• Theater artists bring the playwright’s vision to life on the stage.

• The audience responds to the play and shares the experience.

Stages can have many different sizes and layouts.

“Thrust” stage

Setting the Stage

Stages in Shakespeare’s time

• The stage extends into the viewing area.

• The audience surrounds the stage on three sides.

“In the round” stage is surrounded by an audience on all sides.

Setting the Stage

Proscenium stage

Setting the Stage

• The playing area extends behind an opening called a “proscenium arch.”

• The audience sits on one side looking into the action.

upstage

downstage

stage leftstage right

Scene design transforms a bare stage into the world of the play. Scene design consists of

• props

• sets

• costumes

• lighting

Setting the Stage

A stage’s set might be

realistic and detailed

Setting the Stage

abstract and minimal

A lighting director skillfully uses light to change the mood and appearance of the set.

Setting the Stage

The costume director works with the director to design the actors’ costumes.

• Like sets, costumes can be

detailed minimal

Setting the Stage

Props (short for properties) are items that the characters carry or handle onstage.

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• The person in charge of props must make sure that the right props are available to the actors at the right moments.

Setting the Stage

The characters’ speech may take any of the following forms.

Dialogue: conversations of characters onstage

Monologue: long speech given by one character to others

Soliloquy: speech by a character alone onstage to himself or herself or to the audience

Asides: remarks made to the audience or to one character; the other characters onstage do not hear an aside

The Characters

What are the stage directions in this passage?

What does the characters’ dialogue tell you about them?

The Characters

Quick CheckLIZA. No: I dont want no gold and no diamonds. I'm a good girl, I am. [She sits down again, with an attempt at dignity].   

HIGGINS. You shall remain so, Eliza, under the care of Mrs. Pearce. And you shall marry an officer in the Guards, with a beautiful moustache: the son of a marquis, who will disinherit him for marrying you, but will relent when he sees your beauty and goodness—

from Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw [End of Section]

Finally, a play needs an audience to

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experience the performance

understand the story

respond to the characters

The Audience

Choose a play or movie that you remember seeing, and discuss its dramatic elements.

1. Describe the stage set or sets.

2. Indicate who the characters are and what their relationship is.

3. Evaluate the characters’ dialogue. Does it make clear what the characters want and why they are having trouble getting it?

4. Write a few of the stage directions, based on what you imagine them to have been.

Practice

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The End