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The Nature of Drama
The Nature of Drama
Drama
CHAPTER 1
What is Drama
Definition: a story that is enacted in real space
and time by live actors for a live audience.
Based on Greek word dran, meaning “to do”
Earliest copies from 5th century in ancient Greece
For festivals for Dionysus (God of wine and fertility)
Competition each year to see who would win with best play
Most Greek conventions within theater are still followed today
Despite the genre, all plays originally emulated plots
similar within literature we see today
So what makes it so different?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjLrMxO4cys
What Separates Drama from other
Literature?
It is written to be performed, not read. It has a tremendous source of power if done correctly.
It normally presents actions:
1. Conveyed through actors
Costumes
Impact is direct, immediate, and heightened by actor’s skills
Limitations of thought process were seen until conventions of:
Dialogue- conversations between characters on stage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfiY9B_F74I
Monologues- Long speeches by individual characters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8RoH-ky6Kw
Soliloquy- characters are presented as speaking to themselves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pusU90ov8pQ
Aside- characters turn from the persons with whom they are
conversing to speak directly to the audience or to one character.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mYaKObc_3w
What Separates Drama from other
Literature?
2. Performed On stage (thrust, in the round, proscenium arch)
Forcefully commands spectators attention
(controlled lighting, sounds, seating, distractions, speed)
Not only dependent on power of words
Scene Design
Lighting
Props
Stage directions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6VFfGvAVZI
What Separates Drama from other
Literature?
3. Performed before an audience
spectator = “to view” and audience “to hear”
Actors and playwrights can feed off of audience response
The experience created is communal and its impact is intensified.
Spectator’s responses are influenced by other spectators many times
“One of the special qualities of theater is that when we respond, we respond as a group.”
– Robert Anderson
Do you agree? Does an audience affect one’s performance?
Tragedy
1. Always includes tragic hero who is a man of noble and moral stature
Greatness about him, not ordinary but one of outstanding quality.
He is good though not perfect and his fall results from “an act of injustice”
2. The hero always has a downfall which is a result of result of his/her own
free choice, not accident. This personal failing is known as the tragic flaw
Greatness + flaw = pity
3. This misfortune is not usually wholly deserved.
Punishment often exceeds the crime
Hard to say “He got what was coming to him.”
4. The tragic fall is not pure loss
This is where “discovery” usually takes over
5. Though solemn emotions are aroused (pity and fear),
if done correctly more positive emotions are evoked
(compassion and awe)
Should not leave depressed but rather contemplative!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj7R36s4dbM
Comedy
1. A play that ends happily
Contains own typical conflicts and plot patterns
Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl etc. (visa versa with gender)