Characterization

Play writers turn characters into people who can personify characters so that the audience
are able to understand and communicate with and this is important and the hea
d goal for any kind of drama or play where the head goal of a drama is to communicate the
goal whether this head goal of the drama is a persuasive goal , informative goal,
entertaining goal and so many other goals which are delivered to the audience of the drama
through the character and the character goes through or uses characterization as a goal to
do just that.
Characterization is a process where the actor in a play transfer the character in a drama to
the audience of this play, where characterization is being achieved by multiple things like
the dialogue of the play, stage directions, actions, description, also costuming and the
appearance of the character plays an effective and a noticed role in the attraction of the
audience towards the character acting on stage where costuming consists of costumes or
clothes, hair , makeup etc… and the drama director’s decision towards the play relating to
the presentation and the performance of the characters is counted as a part of the
characterization process. (Heckmann, 2023)
There are two main types of characterization and they are indirect and direct
characterization, where these two types are used in linking actions and supporting each
and the other, but there is a difference between the two types of characterization where the
first kind of characterization which is the indirect characterization is the methods used by
the characters to disclose the character and its statistics or properties and the most popular
five methods to disclose the indirect character in a play is through the thoughts of the
character, the dialogue or what the character says, in addition to the impact of the
character on the rest of the play characters and that can be observed through how the
character communicates or its attitude towards the other actors in the play, also the
character’s actions and the appearance, the second kind of characterization is the direct
characterization and this is a simpler and easier kind of characterization where the
properties of the character is already told out loud to the audience without any kind of
observation that the audience needs to do and an example was in “Goodfellas” where it was
said that: “I could see for the first time that Jimmy was a nervous wreck”. (Heckmann,
2023) (Defining Characterization, n.d.) (MasterClass, 2021)
It is observed through what is already mentioned above that characterization has a great
importance on a play where it plays an important role in the narrating process and
supports the dialogue, also it helps the audience to have a clear view of the story that is
being performed by the actors on stage, and it helps also with how the audience of the play
understands the goal and that is through the kinds of characterization the setting including
the place and time and the appearance of the actors on stage where they should be
attractive for the audience so that they concentrate and observe different things like the
goal, behavior and the rest. (Sarkar, 2021)
To be able to present a character on stage this character needs development and Character
development is a process where a play director creates the character and its properties and
tries to link it with real life characters, and this process includes having a reasonable
backstory where events and actions are relatable, in addition to the blemishes or the weak
points of the character like the character being lazy for instance, and the main goal of the
character, philosophy of the character and its perspective. (Developing Characters in Plays,
n.d.) (Smith, 2023)
Plays occur in many places over the world and the most popular plays are the plays that
occur in Greece and Rome where the Greek theater started as festivals related to the
religion back then, and these festivals where set up for a Greek god that was named
Doinysus and they had to sacrifice and they turned to eventually performances in theaters
and the first actual form of theatrical performance was dramas that where practically
songs that emphasize a story and was sung by a huge amount of men until a man named by
Thespis stepped outside this men gathering and did an individual character and then
followed by him where people like Sophocles and through that the tragedy Greek theater
was formed, there was also comedian Greek theater where it focused on multiple issues like
political and social ones also, furthermore the characters or the actors at that period of
times when the Greek theater started wore masks that showed emotions and attitudes, on
the other hand we have the Romanian theatre which is greatly plagiarized and impacted
from the Greek theatre where it adopted or mimicked the style and techniques used in the
Greek theatre, but the difference is that the Romanians added some things where it focused
more on the comedian theatre for instance they had a variety of entertaining styles of
drama, the roman theatre focusing on comedy doesn’t mean that they didn’t have a
tragedy theatre where it presented forms of violence and some beings also, however the
Romanian theatre is unique including the buildings of the theatres, and it is clear that the
Greek and roman theatres have too much similarities but each one is outstanding, one of
the outstanding similarities in the Greek theatre and the Romanian theatre is
characterization, where it plays a great and effective role in both theatres, hence in the
Greek theatre characterization is used mainly to present the play characters by wearing
masks on the faces and it is not that different with the Romanian theatre. (History of
Theatre: Ancient Greece and Rome, n.d.) (Hemingway, 2004)
Characterization has a great impact on the audience hence, it plays a great role in the
creation of an image of the narrates where it creates the view of the audience towards the
components of the play being presented by the characters, also characterization enhances
and boosts the level of communication and the reaction of the audience based on the type of
the play, for example if it was a comedy drama or a comedy play, characterization and its
types help in making the characters funny through the dialogue, appearance, behavior
etc… so that the audience should meet the performance with laughing and smiling
throughout the play and being happy and on the other hand if the play is tragic and sad the
characterization should be showing just that and the audience should meet the presentation
with crying and being sad and showing signs of empathy towards what is being performed
on stage. (4.6 Editing Focus: More on Characterization and Point of View, n.d.)
There is a relationship between the statement of inquiry and characterization and the
statement of inquiry is: “Character voice and intonation could change audiences’ empathy
towards relationships”, and the relationship is that characterization as mentioned above is
a process where the actor in a play transfer to the character in a drama to the audience of
this play and the statement of inquiry is that the characterization embodies the voice and
the intonation that changes the perspective of the audience towards the presentation or the
play that is being presented and how they react towards the relationships found in a drama
and how they empathize towards that and that relates to the effects of the characterization
on the audience of the preformed drama.
It is known that ancient Greece and ancient Rome made myths up, and that is what is
named mythology and the most famous is the Greek mythology, and it contains generally
stories considering heroes and gods, in addition to the Greek rituals or ceremonies, and
these myths or the Greek mythology is mostly their way of expressing the Greek people
thoughts, cultures and believes, and these myths usually contain an element of fiction, and
one example of a famous myth in the Greek mythology is the myth of “Theseus and the
Minotaur”. (Thorhill, n.d.)
The plot summary of “Theseus and the Minotaur” is that once upon a time there was the
Minotaur who settled in a vast maze on an island called Certe that was built by the
malicious Deadalus for the king Minos, this Minotaur was such a horrifying creature, he
had the head of a bull and the body of a strong man, where every year the king Minos
would order and demand the Athenians to send an total of fourteen of the youth where
seven of them are males and the other half are females as sacrifices, and they were
delivered to the Minotaur in his labyrinth, this is because The king Minos defeated the
Athenians in wars as he took pleasure in attacking the village of the Athens every while but
unfortunately the Athens didn’t have enough sources to fight back and each time they
suffered great losses, so the king Minos made a great deal with the Athenians’ king where
he was demanding this fourteen youths where half of them are males and the other half is
females as tributes of the war because of his victory and to be eaten or in other words to be
the meal of the cruel monster the Minotaur, and the king of Athens did not have another
choice other than agree to the deal that was made with King Minos and from that and on
each year seven girls and seven boys were sent to that dread island, and the greatest thing
was that the king Minos kept his word and stopped attacking the Athenian village
anymore, Theseus the son of the Athens king felt bad for the kids being sent away to face
their crucial end, and he was not a proponent of the idea of sacrificing people, so he had an
idea that would be great and they wouldn’t sacrifice people and it was that he goes and kill
the Minotaur as his father the king of Athens begged him not to but the prince did go and
told his father that if he was dead the ship would come back with black sail and if he is
alive then he will change to the white sail and after that they sail across the sea and as the
ship of the fourteen arrived island crete the king himself was checking and inspecting his
Athenian prisoners and he enjoyed taunting them and behind Minos was standing his
daughter Ariadne and when her eyes landed on Theseus she immediately fell in love with
him and she made a decision that he would help him get rid of the Minotaur and she gave
him a ball of thread to find his way out of the labyrinth and a sword to be able to kill the
Minotaur and Theseus thanked her for helping him and they decided that Ariadne would
go t back to the village with Theseus and he promised her to do so, and then Theseus
succeeded in getting rid of the Minotaur and he and the youths got out of the labyrinth and
took the princess with him, at this point the story splits into two, one tells that Theseus
didn’t find Ariadne attractive and he left her sleeping on the shore of another island, and
the other one tells that a god told him that she was destined to marry another god so he had
to leave her, the rest of the story tells that Theseus was sad and he forgot to change the sail
to whit and when his father or the king saw the black sail he jumped to the see and died
and the sea was named after him “Athenian sea” and Theseus became the king after him.
(Tearle, n.d.)
To analysis the characterization of “Theseus and the Minotaur”, each character in this
story made a contribution to the story and had an effective and noted role and the
analyzing of the story characters is the following:
-Theseus: Theseus is the lead character of this play or he is called the protagonist of this
story and he is a good character, and he is a heroic protagonist where he saves the situation
and his village from that bull headed monster that was the reason of the death of the
Athenian youths which was really frustrating according to the Athenians because they were
not able to do anything about it including standing up for themselves thanks to the lack of
their resources and the threats of king Minos, and then came the hero who could not stand
seeing his village being treated in this kind of insulting, offensive and degrading way and
the youths being taken away and facing death, In addition he is a dynamic character as he
goes under an inner change which is him being sad or feeling bad about leaving Ariadne as
she is the one who helped him get rid of the Minotaur, and he felt mad at the threats his
village was facing, moreover Theseus is a round character as he is well developed and he
demonstrated emotions like being thankful towards Ariadne and feeling bad about her,
and having empathy towards the youths of his village.
-King Minos: Minos is the antagonist of this story where he is the character that opposes
and fights the other party of the story and he is an evil character, in addition to that King
Minos is a static character where that he is the character that doesn’t change greatly over
the happenings of the story, and he was the same evil character over the happenings and
the situations that came around in the texture of the story, furthermore he is a flat
character also as he didn’t display any kind of emotion depth and he showed just one side
of his character which is the evil one and it appeared through many things like being in
constant conflicts and wars, his threats to the Athenians and being a bad father to his
daughter the princess Ariadne that escaped with Theseus.
There is a relationship between the Greek theater and “Theseus and the Minotaur”, where
the theme of the story is Greek where these themes used were known in the Greek theater
and the journey of the hero of this story, in addition to the elements like the visuals like the
costumes used in this plays and the believes related to gods and these kinds of things.
“Theseus and the Minotaur” has a great impact on the audience where this myth reflects
the Greek culture, the believes of the Greek people in addition to this myth or story
reflecting the Greek themes and costumes, moreover the length of the story is short,
subsequently the audience are able to understand the content of the story or the myth of
“Theseus and the Minotaur”.