What Is Drama?

Structure of a Drama

Kinds of Plays

Tragedy

Comedy

Modern Drama

Performance of a Play

The Stage

The Characters

Review

Practice

Drama

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A play is a story acted out, live and onstage.

What Is Drama?

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Like the plot of a story, the plot of a drama follows a rising-and-falling structure.

Climaxtension at highest point

Resolutionconflict is settled, play ends

Complicationstension builds

Expositionconflict is introduced

Structure of a Drama

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A play may be a tragedy, a comedy, or, in modern drama, a mixture of the two.

• A tragedy depicts serious and important events that end unhappily.

• A comedy ends happily. Although most comedies are funny, they may also make us think and question.

Kinds of Plays

Which plot would be a tragedy, and which would be a comedy?

Kinds of Plays

Quick Check

1. A young woman wants to marry her love, but her mother disapproves of him. After many setbacks, the suitor wins the mother’s approval and the lovers marry.

2. A young man, blinded by passion, worsens a feud between his family and his lover’s. The play ends with the deaths of the two lovers.

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Most classical tragedies deal with serious subjects—fate, life, and death—and center on a tragic hero. Tragic heroes

Innocent heroes

ambition

excessive pride

rebelliousness

passion

• are usually noble figures

• have a tragic flaw, a personal failing that leads to their downfall

Tragedy

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In a comedy, the characters usually face humorous obstacles and problems that are resolved by the end of the play. Comic heroes

• may be ordinary people instead of nobility

• eventually overcome their flaws and achieve happiness

Comedy

The conflict in comedies is usually romantic.

• Someone wants to marry but faces an obstacle—opposing parents or rival suitors.

Comedy

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• Complications can involve misunderstandings, mistaken identities, disguises, or transformation.

• The obstacle is always overcome.

Many of today’s dramas can’t be neatly defined as either comedy and tragedy. Modern plays

• often mix the serious with the humorous

• focus on characters that audiences will identify with rather than look up to

Modern Drama

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Plays are meant to be performed. A play comes to life in each unique performance.

Stage DirectionsPlaywright describes setting and actions

InterpretationActors, directors, and designers interpret these directions creatively

PerformanceAudience experiences the story through the actors’ speech and actions

Performance of a Play

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A stage is like a small world unto itself. A stage

• can be grand or intimate

• has its own coordinates

upstage

downstage

stage leftstage right

The Stage

The stage’s set might be

A set can be changed from scene to scene—sometimes with machinery and sometimes with just a change in lighting.

realistic and detailed

The Stage

abstract or minimal

Other important elements of set design are costumes and props.

• Costumes tell us about the characters and the time and place. They can be elaborate or minimal.

• Props are items that the characters carry or handle onstage.

The Stage

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• deciding how to interpret and speak the lines of the play

The actors and director bring characters to life by

• building on the playwright’s stage directions for actions and movements

The Characters

[Mary takes off her jacket and faces the audience.]

Mary: Can I make it on my own?

Characters’ speech takes the form of

• Dialogue—conversation between characters

• Monologue—a long speech by one character to one or more other characters

• Soliloquy—a speech by a character alone onstage, speaking to himself or herself or to the audience

Asides

The Characters

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What are the stage directions in this passage?

Is this more likely to be a comedy or a tragedy? Why?

Review

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Quick Check

[Gwendolen and Cecily are at the window, looking out into the garden.]Gwendolen. The fact that they did not follow us at once into the house . . . seems to me to show that they have some sense of shame left.Cecily. They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance.Gwendolen. [After a pause.] They don’t seem to notice us at all. Couldn’t you cough?from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Tragedy—a narrative about serious and important events that lead to a disastrous outcome

The Tragedy of Romeo and JulietLiterary Focus: Tragedy

• A tragedy usually ends with the deaths of the main characters.

• Their downfall may be the result of

• character flaws that lead to unwise actions

• fate (events beyond the characters’ control)

• a little bit of both

The Tragedy of Romeo and JulietLiterary Focus: Tragedy

Shakespeare’s tragic plays usually follow a five-part sequence:

Act IExposition

Act VClimax and resolution

Act IIICrisis, or

turning point

Act IIRising action, or complications

Act IVFalling action

The Tragedy of Romeo and JulietLiterary Focus: Tragedy

Exposition

• establishes setting

• introduces characters

• explains background

• introduces characters’main conflict

The Tragedy of Romeo and JulietLiterary Focus: Tragedy

Rising action consists of a series of complications that occur when the main characters take action to resolve their problems.

The Tragedy of Romeo and JulietLiterary Focus: Tragedy

The crisis, or turning point, is the moment when a choice made by the main characters determines the direction of the action.

• In a tragedy, the action heads downward, toward disaster.

• In a comedy, the action heads upward, toward a happy ending.

The Tragedy of Romeo and JulietLiterary Focus: Tragedy

The crisis is the point when all the forces of conflict come together to create the greatest drama and tension of the play.

• Look for the turning point as you read Act III of Romeo and Juliet.

The Tragedy of Romeo and JulietLiterary Focus: Tragedy

Falling action presents events that result from the action taken at the turning point.

• With each event, we see the characters falling deeper into tragedy.

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Act IILiterary Focus: Tragedy

Climax is the moment of greatest emotional intensity in the plot.

• In a tragedy, the final and greatest climax occurs near the end of the play and usually consists of the deaths of the main characters.

The Tragedy of Romeo and JulietLiterary Focus: Tragedy

Resolution (or denouement) is the final part of the play.

• All the loose ends are tied up, and the play is over.

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The End