Modern and Contemporary British Drama Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Modern and Contemporary

British Drama 1. Drama. General
Concepts
Ioana Mohor-Ivan

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Drama - Dramatic text

a unique literary form that comes to life on stage.
Short Story or Novel
meant to be read
static: takes its final form on
paper
story is told through words
alone
scenes are created in
reader’s imagination
can be read in more than one
sitting
 the primary text: the main body of the play spoken by the characters
 secondary texts: all the texts ‘surrounding’ or accompanying the main
text (title, dramatis personae, scene descriptions, stage directions for
Drama acting and speaking, etc.)
meant to be performed
dynamic: can change from one
 The play as written text:
production to the next  first-hand information on what the characters look like, how
they act and react in certain situations, how they speak, what
voice, movement, and gesture sort of setting forms the background to a scene, etc. + a
are essential cognitive effort to imagine all these features and interpret
them for oneself.
scenes are created with lighting  limited to the visual perception
and set design
 The play as stage performance:
length is limited by attention  ready-made instantiations of all these details
span of audience  offers a multi-sensory access to the dramatic text (can make
use of multimedia elements, such as music, sound effects,
lighting, stage props, etc.)

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Modern and Contemporary British Drama
Elements of drama
• information flow
• overall structure
• space
• time
• characters
• types of utterance in drama
• types of stage
• dramatic sub-genres
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Structure
 As with the study of narrative texts, one can distinguish between
story and plot in drama.
 Story addresses an assumed chronological sequence of events.
 Plot refers to the way events are causally and logically connected.
 Plots:
 can have various plot-lines, i.e., different elaborations of parts of the
story which are combined to form the entire plot.
 can be either linear or non-linear.
 The three unities: unity of plot, unity of place, and unity of time
(one of the classical poetic ‘laws’ to achieve a sense of
cohesiveness and unity, found in Aristotle’s Poetics)
 It followed Aristotle’s concept of mimesis, i.e., the attempt to
imitate or reflect life as authentically as possible.
 Dramatic illusion: the illusion of reality created by drama and
accepted by the audience for the duration of the play.
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Drama: general concepts & The 19th-century theatrica
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Ioana Mohor-Ivan
Information flow
 no narrator to tell us what is going on in the story-world
(except for narrator figures in the epic theatre and other
mediators)
 the audience has to gain information directly from what
can be seen and heard on stage.
 Information can be conveyed:
 linguistically (e.g. in the characters’ speech)
 non-linguistically (e.g. in stage props, costumes, the stage set,
etc.
 questions:
 How much information is given?
 How is it conveyed?
 Whose perspective is adopted?
 dramatic irony: the discrepancy between the audience’s
and characters’ knowledge of certain information
Space
 Space is an important element in drama since the stage itself
also represents a space where action is presented.
 The analysis of places and settings in plays can help one get a
better feel for characters and their behaviour but also for the
overall atmosphere.
 Plays can differ significantly with regard to how space is
presented and how much information about space is offered.
 The stage set quite literally ‘sets the scene’ for a play (it
conveys a certain ‘tone’).
 Stage props: properties used on stage such as furniture,
accessories, etc.
 Stage painting can be presented verbally in secondary texts,
which is then translated into an actual visualisation on stage.
 The setting:
 can be used as a means of indirect characterization
 is interrelated with the plot (sometimes: symbolic)
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Modern and Contemporary British Drama Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Time Characters
 can be considered from a variety of angles.
 as part of the play: How are references to time made in the
characters’ speech, the setting, stage directions, etc.? What is the
overall time span of the story?  Classification:
 a crucial factor in the performance of a play: How long does the  major vs minor characters
performance actually take? (the audiences’ perception of time can
also vary)  protagonist vs antagonist
 General concepts of time  multi-dimensional (complex) vs mono-dimensional (type)
 succession vs simultaneity of events and actions  dynamic vs static
 temporal frames: created through characters’ conversations; stage  round vs flat
directions; stage props (clocks and calendars); auditory
devices(church bells ringing)
 played time vs real playing time; ellipses, speed-up, slow-
 Techniques of characterisation:
down  authorial (characterisations made by the author in the play’s
 order: flashback (analepsis) and flashforward (prolepsis) secondary text) vs. figural (made by characters in the play)
 frequency: singulative: an event takes place once and is referred  direct (explicit) vs indirect (implicit).
to once; repetitive: an event takes place once but is referred to or
presented repeatedly; iterative: an event takes place several times  self-characterisation vs. characterisation through others
but is referred to in the text only once

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authorial figural
Dramatic Language
 Dramatic language is modelled on real-life
conversations among people, and yet, when
explicit descriptions of characters’ descriptions of one watches a play, one also has to consider
characters in author and comments on other the differences between real talk and drama
commentary or stage characters; also self- talk.
directions; telling characterisation
 Dramatic language is ultimately always
names
constructed or ‘made up’ and it often serves
implicit correspondences and physical appearance, gesture several purposes.
contrasts; indirectly and facial expressions (body  On the level of the story-world of a play, language can of course
characterising names language); masks and assume all the pragmatic functions that can be found in real-life
costumes; stage props, conversations, too: e.g., to ensure mutual understanding and to
convey information, to persuade or influence someone, to relate one’s
setting; behaviour; voice; experiences or signal emotions, etc.
language (style, register,  However, dramatic language is often rhetorical and poetic, i.e., it uses
dialect, etc.); topics one language in ways which differ from standard usage in order to draw
attention to its artistic nature.
discusses
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Modern and Contemporary British Drama Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Types of utterances in drama Types of stages

 Monologue  Greek theatre: open arena

 Dialogue
 Soliloquy (a special form of monologue, where no
other person is present on stage beside the speaker)
 Aside (spoken away from other characters; a character
either speaks aside to himself, secretively to (an)other
character(s) or to the audience).
 Stichomythia (speaker’s alternating turns are of one
line each)
 Repartee (quick responses given in order to top
remarks of another speaker or to use them to one’s
own advantage)
 Wordplay (puns, wit: combines humour and intellect)
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 Medieval theatre: mansions and portable
waggons
 Renaissance theatre: Elizabethan playhouse (the
thrust stage)
 Modern theatre: the proscenium stage
 Contemporary theatre: both proscenium and open
forms (theatre-in-the-round, traverse stage,
thrust stage, end-stage.)
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Medieval theatre – portable waggons

The Greek theatre – open arena

Engraving of a
The Dionysos performance from
Theatre in Athens the Chester
built into the mystery play cycle.
Acropolis, ~3rd
century BC.

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Modern and Contemporary British Drama Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Renaissance theatre – thrust stage

Restoration
theatre –
A 1596 sketch of a proscenium +
performance in apron stage
progress on the
thrust stage of
The Swan, a
typical circular The Dorset
Elizabethan open- Gardens playhouse
roof playhouse. in 1673, with one
of the sets for
Elkannah Settle's
The Empress of
Morocco.

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Modern theatre – proscenium stage

Contemporary apron stage

The interior of the Auditorium Building in Chicago

built in 1887. The arch around the stage is a
proscenium.

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Modern and Contemporary British Drama Ioana Mohor-Ivan

3/4 thrust stage Theatre-in-the-round

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Dramatic Genres Elements of performance

 Actor (importance of casting)
 Categories of plays grouped according to
their purpose, form, or content
 Express the way the drama views human  Director (interpretation)
existence or divides human experience
 Most common genres:
 Audience (decoding)
 Tragedy
 Comedy
 Tragicomedy

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Modern and Contemporary British Drama
2. THE 19TH - CENTURY
THEATRICAL BACKGROUND
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Features of Melodrama
Exaggerated and stylised movement
and extended vocal technique
expressing extreme emotions and
sentimentality
Stereotyped characters
Good vs Evil: moral struggle
Audience interaction (breaking the 4th Maximum sense of empowerment. The people in
wall)
Spectacular events
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Drama: general concepts & The 19th-century theatrica
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Ioana Mohor-Ivan
Popular Dramatic Forms
 Historical costume drama: Grand opera-style productions of historical
plays (mainly revivals of Shakespeare), which placed their main
emphasis on strong emotional contrasts and spectacular effects.
 Melodrama: a suspenseful play, appealing excessively to the audience’s
emotions by exposing the uncommonly virtuous to the threat of defeat
by the uncompromisingly vicious.
 The well-made-play: an adaptation of melodrama for literate
audiences, in which suspense is generated by a logical, cleverly
constructed plot, rather than characterisation, psychological accuracy
or social themes.
 Farce: a short comedy, which inspires hilarity mixed with panic and
cruelty.
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Fast paced dramatic plots Exciting story, suspense, plot
Based on the large size of the theatres of the time
twists (discoveries, hairbreadth
and the exaggerated characteristics/ behaviours of escapes, secret passages,
the characters hiding places, disguises)
Usually one dimensional, they do not change Audience response Very basic emotional appeals
psychologically or morally
involve “ arousal of pity and
The human struggle between pure good (usually
poor and downtrodden) vs pure evil (usually the indignation at the wrongful
rich, greedy or powerful). There is strict oppression of good people and
observance of poetic justice – good always intense dislike for wicked
rewarded and evil always punished.
oppressors”
the audience may be helpless at home but they Exotic locations Exotic/far away or
can beat the bad guys at the show. ugly/desperate or
lush/beautiful – never ordinary
e.g. Chases, explosions, battles, fights, fierce
arguments, sea voyages, supernatural events.
These helped people to forget their own troubles
for a while.
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Modern and Contemporary British Drama Ioana Mohor-Ivan

The Well-Made Play Formula Late Victorian stage

 Theatre: a fashionable and respectable institution.
1. A careful exposition telling the audience what the situation is,
usually including one or more secrets to be revealed later.  Main audience: upper-middle class.
2. Surprises, such as letters to be opened at a critical moment  The commercial stage: dominated by actor-
and identities to be revealed later.
3. Suspense that builds steadily throughout the play, usually managers.
sustained by cliff-hanging situations and characters who miss each  Plays:
other by way of carefully timed exits and entrances. At critical
moments, characters lose important papers or misplace identifying  subject-matter socially restricted to the lives of the upper
jewellery, for instance. middle-class.
4. A CLIMAX late in the play when the secrets are revealed and  demonstrated and endorsed a non-objectionable subject-
the hero confronts his antagonists and succeeds. matter and morality.
5. A DENOUEMENT, the resolution of the drama when all the
loose ends are drawn together and explanations are made that render  conservative in matters of social conduct and sexual
all the action plausible (believable). morality.

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ASSIGNMENT
 Read “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray” by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero
 Provide a 1,000-word written analysis in which you:
 Overview its plot by identifying the 5 sections of a well-made play
 Provide a classification for four characters in the play, namely Aubrey
Tanqueray, Paula Tanqueray, ElleanTanqueray and Cayley
Drummle and identify the techniques through which their
characterisation is achieved.
 Discuss the extent to which the play incorporates features of
melodrama
 Discuss the extent to which the play endorses the ethos of the late
Victorian theatre
 Upload your analysis on the Moodle platform until 12th April
2020.

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