Module 2: Writing Drama

1. Introduction

The earliest origins of drama are to be found in Athens where ancient hymns, called dithyrambs, were sung in honor of
the god Dionysus.  These hymns were later adapted for choral procession in which participants would dress up in
costumes and masks.  Eventually, certain members of the chorus evolved to take special roles within the procession, but
they were not yet actors in the way we would understand it.

That development came later in the 6th century BC, when the tyrant Pisistratus, who then ruled the city, established a
series of new public festivals. One of these, the 'City Dionysia', a festival of entertainment held in honor of the god
Dionysus, featured competitions in music, singing, dance and poetry. And most remarkable of all the winners was said to
be a wandering bard called Thespis.

According to tradition, in 534 or 535 BC, Thespis astounded audiences by leaping on to the back of a wooden cart and
reciting poetry as if he was the characters whose lines he was reading. In doing so he became the world's first actor, and
it is from him that we get the world thespian.

History of Philippine Theatre

Let’s take a look at how the history of Philippine Theatre has evolved:

Pre-colonial Time

 During pre-historic times, theater in the Philippines was in the form of indigenous rituals, verbal jousts or games,
or songs and dances to praise gods.  According to early chronicles, pre-historic dramas consisted of three
elements-myth, mimesis, and spectacle.
 These mimetic performances mostly dramatized primitive rituals and epic poetry about deities and mythical
legends, where the spirit of the deities would seemingly possess a catalonan (priest) or babaylan (priestess).
 During the entranced state, the priest or priestess would consume the sacrificial offering, which could be in the
form of a pig, chicken, rice, wine or nuts.

Spanish Regime

 When the Spaniards reached our shores, they used dramas such as zarzuelas as a pedagogical tool to influence
the pagan tribes and teach them about Christianity and religion.
 Another important form of theater popularized during the Spanish colonization is the comedia, also known
as moro-moro, linambay, or arakyo.  It’s a play in verse that portrays the lives, loves and wars of moors and
Christians.
 Moro-moro is a secular comedy that dramatizes the war between Christians and Muslims through the forbidden
love between the prince and the princess.  The comedy is resolved with the non-Christian being converted to
Christianity, or through his or her death, immediately followed by his or her resurrection.
 Comedias were normally performed in the pueblos or village centers to attract more people to the foundation of
its regime.  The comedia can last anywhere from 3 to 15 hours through a series of performances.  The first
Filipino comedia was performed in Latin and Spanish by Fr. Vicente Puche in Cebu in 1598.
 On the other hand, a zarzuela is a form of musical theater that combines spoken word and song that celebrates
various Catholic liturgical feasts.  Jugar Con Fuego by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri was the first zarzuela introduced
in the country in late 1878 or early 1879.
 By August 17, 1893, Teatro Zorilla, the home of zarzuela, was inaugurated.  Throughout the 333 years of the
Spanish regime, the Philippines was widely influenced by their culture, tradition, and religion. 
Today, zarzuelas and comedias are still being performed, albeit with other cultural influences and contemporary
touches.

American Colonization

 When American colonial rule was established, the United States introduced the American way of life through
education, media, and language.  Their influence on Philippine theatre is most apparent through
the bodabil (vaudeville) and the plays and dramas staged or translated into English.
 In 1898, the first bodabil was produced by the Manila Dramatic Guild for the sole purpose of entertaining
American soldiers and other Americans residing in Manila.  It was also the first theatrical performance since the
revolution.
 The bodabil is not a straight-up play.  The theatrical performance is, in fact, a mix of songs, dances, comedy skits,
and even magical performances.  Local audiences bought-in and productions soon found themselves becoming
entertainment spectacles that can be transported from one town to the next.  Not long after, the bodabil was
interjected into comedias and zarzuelas, as intermission numbers known as jamborees.
 In the 1930s, the country was introduced to Broadway theatre or stage plays through the westernized education
that was provided in most private schools for privileged children.  Shakespearean tragedies and comedies, as
well as western classics, were performed in the original English or English adaptation.
The Japanese Occupation

 By the 1940s, when the Japanese took over the Philippines from the Americans, movie actors and actresses
could no longer appear in films, as the Japanese confiscated all film equipment.  However,
the comedia, zarzuela, and bodabil remained in the country as forms of entertainment and expression.
 Eventually, the bodabil evolved to become stage shows or variety shows with a short melodrama at the end to
accommodate the actors and actresses who moved their craft to bodabil and theatre.  Venues such as the
Manila Grand Opera House and the Savoy Theatre became homes of bodabil.
 After the war, movies returned to popularity, and the bodabil era slowly lost its luster.  Stage shows became
small, cheap performances held in open-air stages in the provinces.  Sadly, the bodabil deteriorated decades
later to become burlesque and strip shows held in cheap theatres around American military bases.

Philippine Theatre as We Know It Today

After the Japanese occupation, the Philippine theatre has evolved to become an amalgamation of the various influences
such that of the zarzuela, comedia, bodabil, and western classics.  Theatre was largely performed in English during the
time, as it because a large part of classroom education.  Meanwhile, zarzuelas such as “Ang Kiri”, “Dalagang Bukid”, and
“Paglipas ng Dilim” became well-known beyond their regions.

By the 1950s, theatre had moved out of classrooms and the concept of paying for a ticket to see a theatrical
performance emerged.  This “legitimate” theatre was held in closed theaters – these became events in themselves, not
just mere parts of a celebration or religious ritual.

During this time, playwrights such as Severino Montano, Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero, and Alberto S. Florentino honed their
crafts and contributed to the development of performing arts in the Philippines.

Through the years, Philippine theatre groups have staged numerous plays in both English and Filipino, be it written by a
Western or local playwright.  Spanish culture and traditions largely influence performing arts in the Philippines, but the
contemporary style is borrowed from the Americans.  Classic shows such as The Westside Story and Sound of Music
made waves in recent years when it took the local stage. 

Definitions and Features of Drama

Drama is broadly defined as any story told in dialogue form that is performed by actors for an audience.  In fact, the
word drama comes from the Greek word dran, meaning to do or to act.  Today, drama includes movies, TV shows, live
stage productions, and radio plays.  Dramatic works can be poetry or prose, fiction or fact, a one-person show or a cast
of thousands (Applebee, et al,, 2000)

Unlike other forms of literature, such as fiction and poetry, a work of drama requires collaboration of many people in
order to come to life.  In an important sense, a drama in printed form is an incomplete work of art. It is a skeleton that
must be fleshed out by a director, actors, set designers, and others who interpret the work and stage a performance.

Most plays are divided into acts, with each act having an emotional peak, or climax of its own.  The acts sometimes are
divided into scenes, each scene is limited to a single time and place.  Shakespeare’s plays usually have five acts. 

Contemporary full-length plays have two or three acts. In play production classes in schools, the more popular type of
plays the students stage is the one-act play, comprising of, as the term implies, one act only, in one scene.

Kinds of Drama

There are four types of drama, they are comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy and melodrama. These genres originated in
different times, but each of them has its own characteristics. However, all of them have their place in modern culture
and should be appreciated. 

Comedy is a type of drama that aims to make the audience laugh. Its tone is light and it mostly has a happy ending. Such
tradition came from the Ancient Greek theatre, where comedy first emerged as a form of drama. Comedy could be
further divided into subcategories, for example, dramatic irony, farce, sarcasm, black comedy, etc. Each type of comedy
has its own audience. Interestingly, such preferences may also depend on the cultural background of people.

Murders, deaths, insanity, and pain are among the most common ideas in tragedies. Main characters usually have some
kind of weakness or defect that causes their downfall. Tragedy first appeared in the theatre of Ancient Greece. Like
comedy, it lived through Roman Empire, Medieval times, Renaissance and other eras. Aristotle believed that the main
characteristic of tragedy was the change of fortunes of the main character because of his flaws. The philosopher also
believed that such drama has to implant a feeling of fear and pity in the audience. As drama evolved, more modern
script writers thought that depicting the downfall of a common person will cause the viewer to feel greater emotions as
it will relate more to a character of their own social status.

Tragicomedy is a special kind of drama that combines the features of tragedy and comedy. It means that such play may
be sad but will have a happy ending, or it may be serious with some elements of humor emerging throughout the whole
play. Unlike comedy and tragedy, tragicomedy emerged a bit later, in the times of Roman Empire. Roman dramatist
Plautus was the first to write a tragicomedy and to use the term. In his play Amphitryon, he used the lightheartedness of
comedy but chose gods and kings as the main characters. This was quite revolutionary of him. Before Plautus, there
were strict rules about writing drama, it was either comedy or tragedy. These genres were never mixed together.
Plautus was the first to note that in our daily lives we have features of both tragedy and comedy. Therefore, drama also
can combine them both.

Melodrama is the last one of the four types of drama. It is a kind of drama in which everything is hyperbolized. Usually,
themes depicted in melodramas are simple and without any unpredictable plot twists. There are quite a lot of
stereotypes in such dramas. However, the main point of a melodrama is not to tell a story but to awaken feelings in the
audience. They are mostly love stories with beautiful heroines, charming heroes and scary villains. Melodrama
originated much later than comedy, tragedy, and tragicomedy. It first appeared in France at the end of the 18th century.
Later, it reached Britain and became one of the most popular types of drama in the 19th century. Particularly, the 19th
century was the period when theatre was the most popular kind of entertainment and was visited by vast number of
people. This is due to the fact that in those times, theatres became available for common people. As melodrama was
aimed at this layer of society in particular, it became immensely popular. The influence of melodrama on society was so
great that it lived to our days and even penetrated other areas of literature and entertainment. 

Elements of Drama

Dramas share the common elements of character, setting, stage, directions, plot and dialogue.

1.  Character.  In drama, as in fiction, the story revolves around main characters, with minor characters contributing to
the action.  Round or dynamic characters change during the course of the story, while flat or static characters remain the
same.  Audience usually identifies with the central character or protagonist.  Opposing the protagonist is the antagonist. 
The struggle between them creates the conflict in the story.  Characters known as foils have qualifies that offer a striking
contrast to the traits of other characters (Applebee, et al., 2000)

2.  Setting.  Like in short stories, setting in dramas refer   to the time and place in which the events occur, including the
environment and atmosphere.  It is established through the use of sets which comprise the props, aided by lighting,
sounds, and other effect.

Full-length plays have several scenes.  One-act plays are staged in one scene.

3.  Stage Direction.  Usually printed in italics and set off in parenthesis, stage directions are the playwright’s instructions
for how the play should be staged and performed.  They often provide background information on characters, historical
periods, and actions occurring before the play begins.  They are also used to describe scenery, or setting – the physical
environment that suggests a specific time or place.  In addition, they tell the actors how to play their parts and specify
lighting, costumes, music sound effects, and props or objects like furniture used in a performance.

4.   Plot.  The plot in drama is a series of related events that usually begins with a problem or conflict that intensifies,
reaches a peak, and is eventually resolved.  Conflict can be external, pitting one character against another person or one
character against another person or an outside force; or internal, involving a struggle within a character
5.  Dialogue.  Dialogue or conversation between characters conveys everything in drama, from plot details to character
revelations.

In addition to dialogues between two or more characters, drama

uses other types of speech:

a) the monologue, a long uninterrupted speech by one character

that reveals his or her thoughts and feelings;

b) the soliloquy, in which the character is alone and speaks his or

her private thoughts aloud as if the audience were not there; and

c) the aside, a short speech delivered directly to the audience as if

the other characters could not hear it
 Module # 3 - Literary Devices for Drama
Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. It is the interconnection between similar or related
works of literature that reflect and influence an audience's interpretation of the text. Intertextuality is the relation
between texts that are inflicted by means of quotations and allusion.  Intertextual figures include: 

allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody. 

Intertextuality is a literary device that creates an 'interrelationship between texts' and generates related understanding
in separate works.  These references are made to influence the reader and add layers of depth to a text, based on the
readers' prior knowledge and understanding. The structure of intertextuality in turn depends on the structure of
influence.  Intertextuality is a literary discourse strategy utilized by writers in novels, poetry, theatre and even in non-
written texts (such as performances and digital media).  Examples of intertextuality are an author's borrowing and
transformation of a prior text, and a reader's referencing of one text in reading another.

Intertextuality does not require citing or referencing punctuation (such as quotation marks) and is often mistaken for
plagiarism.  Intertextuality can be produced in texts using a variety of functions including allusion, quotation and
referencing.  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Intertextual figures discussed in this module are: allusion, quotation, parody, and pastiche;

Intertextual Figures

1.  Allusions

Imagine if every time someone used the expression "it was a real Cinderella story," they had to retell the entire story of
Cinderella to explain exactly what they meant. By using an allusion to a classic fairytale that a majority of people will
already know, a speaker can dramatically shorten what could have been a much lengthier explanation. However, in
order for an allusion to achieve its intended effect, the person making the allusion needs to make accurate assumptions
about what knowledge their audience already has.

Why Do Writers Use Allusions?

Writers or speakers may use allusions for a wide variety of reasons:

 To create a sense of cultural kinship between storyteller and listener, since those who pick up on allusions have
a sense of being "in the know."
 To efficiently convey big ideas, or refer to stories that would take too long to explain.
 To deepen and enrich the meaning of a text by adding a layer that may not be obvious to all readers.
 To add dimension to a work by relating it to other texts.
 To invite readers to reflect on the similarities between their own lives and the lives of authors or characters
being alluded to.
 To place their work in dialogue with the work of those who influenced them.
 To demonstrate their own cultural literacy, or test that of their readers or listeners.

However, when a writer makes use of allusion too frequently, or without making accurate assumptions about whether
their audience will understand, it can have the negative effect of alienating readers, or making the writer seem like a
show-off.

2.  Quotation

This is a reference to a statement of other persons, usually well-known or experts on a field or discipline.  At time, the
reference is without mention of the person from whom the quotation is quoted, when the statement is a popular one.
This device is oftener used in nonfiction than in fiction. 

3.  Parody

A parody imitates or mocks another serious work or type of literature.  Like caricature in art, parody in literature mimics
a subject or a style.  The purpose of a parody may be to ridicule through broad humor.  On the other hand, a parody may
broaden understanding or add insight to the original work (Applebee, et al., 2000).  For example, Austin
Powers parodies James Bond, while the comedy flick Scary Movie parodies Scream and I Know What You Did Last
Summer.

4. Pastiche

Pastiche is written in tribute to a work of literature.  It imitates the style or character of another work.  The imitation
may be comical or not, but unlike in parody, there is no intent to ridicule in pastiche.  For example, the movie Kill Bill is
said to be a pastiche of Kung-Fu movies.  Pup Fiction is considered as a pastiche of old crime dramas in Hollywood and of
Pup magazine.
 Three Types of INTERTEXTUALITIES

Intertextuality and intertextual relationships can be separated into three types: obligatory, optional, and accidental. 
These variations depend on two key factors: the intention of the reference:

1.  Obligatory.  Obligatory intertextuality is when the writer deliberately invokes comparison or association between two
or more texts.  Without this pre-understanding or success to grasp the link, the reader’s understanding of the text is
regarded as inadequate.  (Fitzsimmons, 2013).

Obligatory intertextuality relies on the reading or understanding of a prior hypotext, before full comprehension of the
hypertext can be achieved. (Jacobmeyer, 1998).

For example, to understand the specific context and characterization within Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Dead, one must first be familiar with Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  It is in Hamlet we first meet these
characters as minor characters and as, the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern plot unravels, specific scenes from Hamlet are
actually performed and viewed from a different perspective.  This understanding of the hypo text Hamlet, gives deeper
meaning to the pretext as many of the implicit themes from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are more recognizable in
Shakespeare’s Hamlet 

2.  Optional.  Optional intertextuality has a less vital impact on the significance of the hypertext.  It is a possible, but not
essential, intertextual relationship that if recognized, the connection will slightly shift the understanding of the text
(Fitzsimmons, 2013).  Optional intertextuality means it is possible to find a connection to multiple texts of a single phrase
or no connection at all (Ivanic, 1998).  The intent of the writer when using optional intertextuality, is to pay homage to
the 'original' writers or to reward those who have read the hypo text.  

The use of optional intertextuality may be something as simple as parallel characters or plotlines.  For examples, J.K.
Rowling’s Harry Potter series shares many similarities with the J. R. R. Tolkiens’ Lord of the Rings trilogy.  They both apply
the use of an aging wizard mentor (Professor Dumbledore and Gandalf) and a key friendship group is formed to assist
the protagonist (an innocent young boy) on their arduous quest to defeat a powerful wizard and to destroy a powerful
being (Keller, 2013).  This connection is interesting and J.K. Rowling was most likely influenced by other fictional and
fantasy novels.  However, this link is not vital to the understanding of the Harry Potter novels.

3.  Accidental.  Accidental intertextuality is when readers often connect a text with another text, cultural practice or a
personal experience, without there being any tangible anchor point within the original text (Fitzsimmons, 2013).   The
writer has no intention of making an intertextual reference and it is completely upon the reader’s own prior knowledge
that these connections are made

Often when reading a book or viewing a film, a memory will be triggered in the viewer’s mind.  For example, when
reading Herman Merville’s Moby Dick, a reader may use his or her prior experiences to make a connection between the
size of the whale and the size of the ship

Writing Short Play

Observation is a skill that all writers must cultivate to see and hear important details of people, places, and events. Ask
the students:

Do you notice how people speak?

What is it about the way they speak or act that tells you when their mood changes?

Do you know people who say the same things in different ways?

People can want the same thing, but they will go about attaining their goals in different ways. For example, two men
both want to make a great deal of money. One achieves his goal by becoming the president of a bank. The other makes
his money by robbing the bank.

A.  Building a Character for your Play

1.    Give your character a name, age, and physical description.

2.   Where does your character live?

3.   What does your character like to do?

4.   Name one thing that would make your character angry.

5.   Describe a typical day for your character.

6.   Describe a dream your character has had.

7.   Pretend your character has a secret. Why is it a secret?

8.   What is your character’s goal?

 
B.  Develop the story, plot and conflict

Once you have your character decide on ideas for the plays, use this questionnaire to help develop the story, plot, and
conflict.

 1.   Why is this day different from all the others?

2.   What is the event that will bring your characters together? Write biographies for each of your characters that include
what they want.

3.   How will they change during the play? (Crucial Note: Plays are about how a course of events changes the characters
involved. Characters grow and change thoughts, attitudes, relationships, and perceptions through what they experience
in the play.)

4.   What will the major conflict be and how will it lead to the climax when the problem is resolved? (Crucial Note:
“Resolved” does not mean happily ever after. A resolution means something has changed, and the play will end with
that change—for better or worse, the problem of the play has reached a conclusion.)

5.   Jot down the basic plot and sum up the plot briefly. Think about how the problem might be solved (again, the
resolution may change as you write the play.)

6.   Answer the five “W”s: WHO’S in my play? WHY are they doing what they’re doing? WHAT’S happening in the play?
WHERE and WHEN is it taking place?

7.   Try outlining what happens in your scenes.

8.   Start writing the scene that excited you the most, even if it is not the official first scene from your outline. Whatever
great ideas come to as you write this or any other scene, be sure to WRITE THEM DOWN!

9.   If you get stuck, keep asking WHY. (Why does she go wherever? Why does he stay with so and so? Etc.)