Drama Definition • Drama is a literary composition involving conflict, action crisis and atmosphere designed to be acted by players on a stage before an audience. – This definition may be applied to motion picture drama as well as to the traditional stage. Considerations • Although plays exist which were mainly written for a reading audience, dramatic texts are generally meant to be transformed into another mode of presentation or medium: the theatre. – Drama is the most dependent of art forms -- director, actors, scene and costume designers must interpret before the audience does. Aristotle’s Six Elements of Drama – PLOT • What happens in a play; the order of events, the story as opposed to the theme; what happens rather than what it means. – THEME • What the play means as opposed to what happens (plot); the main idea within the play. – CHARACTER • The personality or the part an actor represents in a play; a role played by an actor in a play. – DICTION/LANGUAGE/DIALOGUE • The word choices made by the playwright and the enunciation of the actors delivering the lines. – MUSIC/RHYTHM • By music Aristotle meant the sound, rhythm and melody of the speeches. – SPECTACLE • The visual elements of the production of a play; the scenery, costumes, and special effects in a production. Types of Drama • Major subgenres: – Tragedy • Involves the ruin of the leading characters. – Comedy • The leading characters overcome the difficulties which temporarily beset them. – Mixed • Retains parts of tragedy -- heroic or noble characters and extreme situations, but differs from tragedy because usually has a happy ending and a generally optimistic view, even if ending is sad. Types of drama • Minor subgenres: – Melodrama • Work in which emotion is exaggerated and plot and action are emphasized, with a happy ending. – Farce • When comedy involves ridiculous or hilarious complications without regard for human values, it becomes farce. – Entremés • Is a short, comic theatrical performance of one act, usually played during the interlude of a performance of a long dramatic work, in the 16th and 17th centuries in Spain. Elements of Drama • • • • • • • Acts Scenes Character Dialogue Time Setting Stage Directions Acts • An act is each one of the major parts in which a play is divided. – Acts are divided by scenes. • A break between acts does not interrupt the development of action in the play. • The end of an act is marked by the curtain. Scenes • A subdivision of an act in a play. • The division of acts determined by the entrance and exit of characters. Character • The personality or the part an actor represents in a play; a role played by an actor in a play. Characterization • In theatre, characterization is everything the actor does to “give life” to the character. – – – – Make up Costumes Memorize lines Etc. Dialogue • The word choices made by the playwright and the enunciation of the actors delivering the lines. – Monologue • A speech made by one character. – Aside • It is a speech given by an actor on stage that is supposedly not heard by the other actors on stage. Time • Time, in a work of literature, is the sequence of events, the order in which the events in a story take place. • In drama, there is two types of time: – Story time – Action time Story Time • This is the necessary time for the story to happen. – It could be minutes, hours, months, or even years. Action Time • This is the duration of a play in the theatre. Setting • In literature, setting is the time and place of the action within a story. • In drama, there is two types of setting: – Dramatic space – Scenic space Dramatic Space • The dramatic space is what the reader creates thanks to their imagination when reading the text. – This is the setting the reader creates when reading the text. Scenic Space • The scenic space is the area created on stage by the scenery. – It happens in the theatre. – The spectator sees it, and sometimes, is a part of it. Stage Directions • They are indications written in parentheses by the playwright. • Notes in the text of a play that describe the appearance and movements of the characters, as well as the sets, costumes, and lighting. – Stage directions serve primarily as instructions for the cast and crew of a theatrical production, but they also help readers imagine the action of the play. Stage Directions