Nature of drama

Notes By : Ashish Richhariya
Course : FTNMP / BMM
Designation : Faculty at Thakur College Of Science & Commerce
Query : arichhariya30@gmail.com

 Drama is a mode of fictional representation through dialogue and performance. It
is one of the literary genres, which is an imitation of some action. Drama is also a
type of a play written for theater, television, radio, and film.
 Drama is a unique tool to explore and express human feeling. And also, it is an
essential form of behavior in all cultures, it is a fundamental human activity.
 In simple words, a drama is a composition in verse or prose presenting a story in
pantomime or dialogue. It contains conflict of characters, particularly the ones
who perform in front of audience on the stage. The person who writes drama for
stage directions is known as a “dramatist” or “playwright.
 Drama is a story that people act out on a stage before spectators.’ Eric Bentley
remarks: ‘The theatrical situation, reduced to a minimum, is that A impersonates
B while C looks on.’ For Marjorie Boulton, a play ‘is not really a piece of literature
for reading.
Thakur College Of Science & Commerce,Mumbai

 In television, drama is
a genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended
to be more serious than humorous in tone.
 Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional
terms that specify its particular subgenre, such as
"police crime drama", "political drama", "legal
drama", "historical drama", "domestic drama", "teen
drama" or "comedy-drama".
 These terms tend to indicate a particular setting or
subject-matter, or else they qualify the otherwise
serious tone of a drama with elements that
encourage a broader range of moods.

 Drama is a mode distinct from novels, short
stories, and narrative poetry or songs.
 In the modern era before the birth of
cinema or television, "drama"
within theatre was a type of play that was
neither a comedy nor a tragedy.
 It is this narrower sense that the film and
television industries, along with film studies,
adopted.

 literature : a composition in verse or prose intended to
portray life or character or to tell a story usually
involving conflicts and emotions through action and
dialogue and typically designed for theatrical
performance : PLAY
 a state, situation, or series of events involving
interesting or intense conflict of forces
 : a movie or television production with characteristics
(such as conflict) of a serious play
 broadly : a play, movie, or television production with a
serious tone or subjecta police drama

 Just and lively image of human nature,
representing its passions and humours, and the
changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the
delight and instruction of mankind.”
 According to the definition, drama is an ‘image’ of ‘human nature’, and the image is
‘just’ and ‘lively’. By using the word ‘just’ Dryden seems to imply that literature
imitates (and not merely reproduces) human actions. For Dryden, ‘poetic imitation’ is
different from an exact, servile copy of reality, for, the imitation is not only ‘just’, it is
also ‘lively’.
 When the group talks about the definition of Drama Lisidieus expresses his views about
Drama as “a just and lively Image of Humane Nature.” And then each character
expresses his views about Drama and they compare French Drama and English Drama
and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of French and English Drama.
 The debate goes on about the comparison between ancient writers and modern writers.
They also discuss the importance of “Unity in French Drama”. So far as the Unities of
Time, Place and Action are concerned French Drama was closer to the classical notions
of Drama. With the influence of Platonic Dialogues Dryden had designed the group that
further discusses the Playwrights such as Ben Jonson, Molière, and Shakespeare with a
deeper insight.
 Crites offers an objection specifically to the use of rhyme as he privileges the
verisimilitude of the scene while citing Aristotle. On the other hand, Neander favours
the natural rhyme since that, according to him, adds artistry to the plays. It was
Twilight when the four friends had their final speech at the Somerset-Stairs and then
the four friends parted along their separate ways.

 The older meaning of ‘Drama’ refers the definite type of fiction that is
meant for stage performance. However, the word, ‘Drama’ is derived
from a Greek word which means action.
 Comedy and tragedy are two traditional generic division of Drama.
However, in a narrow sense, drama is referred as a specific type of
play that dates back to the 19th century. By considering that period, a
drama or play was neither a comedy nor a tragedy. For example, we
can take ‘Chekhov’s Ivanov’.
 Drama is one of the best literary forms through which dramatists can
directly speak to their readers, or the audience, and they can receive
instant feedback of audiences.
 A few dramatists use their characters as a vehicle to convey their
thoughts and values, such as poets do with personas, and novelists do
with narrators. Since drama uses spoken words and dialogues, thus
language of characters plays a vital role, as it may give clues to their
feelings, personalities, backgrounds, and change in feelings.
 In dramas the characters live out a story without any comments of the
author, providing the audience a direct presentation of characters’ life
experiences.

 Collaboration/Convention
 Plot
 Audience
 Theme
 Stage craft
 Character

 In performance, characters come to life. They occupy physical space,
they move, and nearly always they speak. While reading fiction or
poetry, we imagine; as an audience for a play, we see and hear.
 In some ways, of course, a play is a lot things which are consistent
with their roles.
 At this climax, the two main conflicting elements will confront each
other most directly. We will see their nature most clearly, and
understand the fictional world most completely
 In novels we are often asked to imagine a particular scene as it might
look if it were unfolding in real life. A play, however, is presented on a
particular stage.
 Its visual effects depends on its stage. Its size and shape, the nature
of the scenery and costuming, even its placement in the theater.
 For example, in the 1600 Shakespeare's stage thrust out in to the
middle of the audience, and was an open-air platform. No artificial
lighting emphasized the separation between actors and audience; an
actor literally stood in the middle of his audience.

 Instead, we will accept what the script gives us,and
try to imagine it acted on a particular stage.
 We will read it as if we were directors planning a
production. We will read it in awareness that the play
is partly our own creation, that we ourselves mediate
between the script and the world.
 At the same time, though we must imagine it as we
would have it played on stage to ourselves as a part of
that audience.
 By giving the script an interpretation and then
imagining its effects on stage, we complete it and bring
it to life.

 Comedy – Comedies are lighter in tone than ordinary works, and provide a
happy conclusion. The intention of dramatists in comedies is to make their
audience laugh. Hence, they use quaint circumstances, unusual characters,
and witty remarks.
 Tragedy – Tragic dramas use darker themes, such as disaster, pain, and
death. Protagonists often have a tragic flaw— a characteristic that leads
them to their downfall.
 Farce – Generally, a farce is a nonsensical genre of drama, which often
overacts or engages slapstick humor.
 Melodrama – Melodrama is an exaggerated drama, which is sensational and
appeals directly to the senses of the audience. Just like the farce, the
characters are of a single dimension and simple, or may be stereotyped.
 Musical Drama – In musical dramas, dramatists not only tell their stories
through acting and dialogue, but through dance as well as music. Often the
story may be comedic, though it may also involve serious subjects.

 Crime drama, police procedural, and legal drama character development
based on themes involving criminals, law enforcement and the legal
system.
 Historical drama : films that focus on dramatic events in history.
 Horror drama : a film that focuses on imperiled characters dealing with
realistic emotional struggles, often involving dysfunctional family
relations, in a horror setting. The film's horror elements often serve as a
backdrop to an unraveling dramatic plot.
 Docudrama : The difference between a docudrama and a documentary
is that in a documentary it uses real people to describe history or current
events; in a docudrama it uses professionally trained actors to play the
roles in the current event, that is "dramatized" a bit. Not to be confused
with docufiction.
 Comedy-drama : a film in which there is an equal, or nearly equal,
balance of humour and serious content.

 Melodrama: a sub-type of drama films that uses plots that appeal to
the heightened emotions of the audience. Melodramatic plots often
deal with "crises of human emotion, failed romance or friendship,
strained familial situations, tragedy, illness, neuroses, or emotional
and physical hardship".
 Film critics sometimes use the term "pejoratively to connote an
unrealistic, pathos-filled, camp tale of romance or domestic
situations with stereotypical characters (often including a central
female character) that would directly appeal to feminine audiences“.
 “Women's movies", "weepies", tearjerkers, or "chick flicks". If they are
targeted to a male audience, then they are called "guy cry" films.
Often considered "soap-opera" drama.
 Military drama focuses on the interpersonal and situational crises of
characters in the military.
 Romantic drama a sub-type of dramatic film which dwells on the
elements of romantic love.
 Teen drama focuses on teenage characters, especially where
a secondary school setting plays a role

 In literature class the script itself is all we
have. We must keep in mind that if only
seems to be a text, that is is actually a play
waiting to be acted.
 Then we will not look for an authoritative (or
even ironic) narrative
 Voice; nor will we evaluate characters and
events on the basis of their resemblance to
"life".

 Marjorie Boulton, a play ‘is not really a piece of
literature for reading. A true play is three-
dimensional; it is literature that walks and talks
before our eyes’.
 The crucial stresses are, again and again, on
the theatricality of drama, that it is an art which
requires performance on a stage for its full effect.
 Drama that it involves real-life people pretending to
be imagined people; and that it places particular
emphasis on action, of a concentrated, often
intense, kind.
 The primacy of action in drama is a product of the
peculiarly physical nature of the form

 Drama is a communal art involving a group of performers and a
larger group who watch the performance. This communal
aspect of drama is rooted in its remote origins, in primitive
fertility rites and in religious observances. Drama's relationship
to the myths, legends and folk observances of a culture is the
major source of its power.
 The essential nature of drama is to present the action,
conflict, crisis and resolution of a story through character
actors before a group comprising the audience in a public
forum where mental and emotional (sometimes physical)
reactions are a collective experience.
 The plays of Wole Soyinka (b.1934), for example, are firmly
rooted in aspects of the religion and myths of the Yoruba
people of Nigeria. The Road (1965) is based on the Egungun
ceremony in which a human is ritually possessed by the god
Ogun, who created the bridge between men and gods. The
title refers to his courageous journey across the original chaos.

Drama is a serious, intense, or well plotted
story that elicits emotion.
The term comes from a Greek word meaning
“action” which is derived from “to do” or “to
act”.
Traditionally performed on stagebefore an
audience, but now-a-days canrefer to a TV
show, a movie, Broadway show, etc.

 The feature of drama is to be performed on stage or to be
performed in front of an audience.
It has to have:
 Actors: Actors are various persons who act in a dramatic or
comic production and works in film, television, theatre or radio
in that capacity.
 The ancient Greek word for an actor (hypokrites), means
literally "one who interprets"; in this sense, an actor is one who
interprets a dramatic character.
 Dialogue : Dialogue is a literary and theatri cal form consisting
of a written or spoken conversational exch ange between two or
more ("dia" means through or across) people.
 Actions : Actions are ho the character replicate or respond to
certain dialogue .

 Theme : Considered as the soul of the drama if plot were to be
thought of as the body. The same plots have been and will be used
many times; it is the theme’s treatment that supplies each effort
with originality or artistic worth.The treatment of theme is equally
varied.
 Character : Most simply a character is one of the persons who appears
in the play. In another sense of the term, the treatment of the
character is the basic part of the playwrights work. Conventions of
the period and the authors personal vision will affect the treatment
of character. Most plays contain major characters and minor
characters,and protagonists and antagonists.
 Stagecraft : Refers to the surroundings and various props needed to
promote the atmospheric effect of the drama. The stage creates its
effects in spite of, and in part because of, definite physical
limitations. Setting and action tend to be suggestive rather than
panoramic or colossal. Both setting and action may be little more
than hints for the spectator to fill out.

 Drama was seen as a viable and beneficial approach to learning for students of
various ages and within diverse contexts. These benefits include the following:
 Development of social skills
 Improvement of expressive language skills with remedial readers
 Increased imaginative play
 Development of literacy
 Development of mental images for stories
 Comprehension skills
 Improvement of student engagement in learning
 Thinking skills

Nature of drama

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