2. What Is Drama?
A drama is a story enacted onstage for a live audience.
A prose or verse composition, especially one telling a serious story,
that is intended for representation by actors impersonating the
characters and performing the dialogue and action.
Drama is often combined with music and dance: the drama in opera
is generally sung throughout; musicals generally include both
spoken dialogue and songs.
3. A literary composition involving conflict, action
crisis and atmosphere designed to be acted by players
on a stage before an audience.
A composition in prose or verse presenting, in
pantomime and dialogue, a narrative involving
conflict and usually designed for presentation on a
stage. Aristotle called it “imitated human action.”
"When I read great literature, great drama,
speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind
has not achieved anything greater than the ability to
share feelings and thoughts through language."-
James Earl Jones
4. Famous Statements of Authors:
As David Berlo says, theatre is a distinguished
vehicle of communication, with a considerable
tradition and heritage. Many people would
classify the theater as an „entertainment‟ vehicle.
Yet countless examples could be given of plays
that were intended to have, and did have,
significant effects on an audience, other than
entertainment.
5. Norris Houghton says that drama should
participate in the “real” action - that it should
express faithfully in the theater the artist's
conception of reality.
"No literary form has more historical
importance than drama," by Seymour Reiter.
6. What Is Drama?
Origins of Drama
The word drama comes from the
Greek verb dran, which means
“to do.”
The earliest known plays . . .
were written around the fifth
century B.C.
produced for festivals to honor
Dionysus, the god of wine and
fertility
7. In the 6th century BC, when the
Trivia
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 word thespian.
8. Dramatic Structure
Like the plot of a story, the plot of a play involves
characters who face a problem or conflict.
Climax
point of highest tension;
action determines how the
conflict will be resolved
Complications
tension builds
Resolution
Exposition conflict is resolved;
characters and conflict play ends
are introduced
9. Elements of Drama
Structure/plot Sub-elements:
Imitation by actors
Conflict Dialogue
Theme Scenery
Hand Properties
Setting Costumes
Gestures
Character
Sound Effects
Audience
10. Dramatic Structure
Conflict is a struggle or clash
between opposing characters
or forces. A conflict may
develop . . .
between characters who want
different things or the same
thing
between a character and his or
her circumstances
within a character who is torn
by competing desires
11. Tragedy
A tragedy is a play that ends unhappily.
• Most classic Greek tragedies deal with
serious, universal themes such as
right and wrong
justice and injustice
life and death
• Tragedies pit human limitations against the
larger forces of destiny.
12. Tragedy
The protagonist of most classical tragedies is a
tragic hero. This hero
pride
• is noble and in many
ways admirable
• has a tragic flaw, a rebelliousness
personal failing that
leads to a tragic end
jealousy
13. Comedy
A comedy is a play that ends happily. The plot
usually centers on a romantic conflict.
boy meets girl boy loses girl boy wins girl
15. Comedy
• Comic complications always
occur before the conflict is
resolved.
• In most cases, the play
ends with a wedding.
16. Modern Comedy
Modern Comedies
In modern comedies, the genders in this romantic
plot pattern sometimes are reversed.
17. Modern Drama
A modern play
• may be tragedy, comedy, or a mixture of the
two
• usually focuses on personal issues
• usually is about ordinary people
18. Modern Drama
Modern playwrights often experiment with
unconventional plot structures.
long flashbacks
music
visual projections
of a character’s
private thoughts
19. Performance of a Play
When you read a play, remember that it is meant
to be performed for an audience.
Stage Directions Performance
Playwright describes setting Theater artists bring the
and characters‟ actions and playwright‟s vision to life
manner. on the stage.
[Wyona is sitting on the couch. The audience responds to
She sees Paul and jumps to her the play and shares the
feet.] experience.
Wyona. [Angrily.] What do
you want?
20. Performance of a Play
Theater artists include
Actors
Directors
Lighting technicians
Stage crew
21. Setting the Stage
Stages can have many different sizes and
layouts.
“Thrust” stage
• The stage extends
into the viewing area.
• The audience
surrounds the stage
on three sides.
23. Setting the Stage
Proscenium stage
• The playing area extends behind an opening
called a “proscenium arch.”
• The audience sits on one side looking into the
action.
upstage
stage right stage left
downstage
25. Setting the Stage
Scene design transforms a bare stage into the
world of the play. Scene design consists of
• sets
• lighting
• costumes
• props
26. Setting the Stage
A stage’s set might be
realistic and abstract
detailed and minimal
27. Setting the Stage
A lighting director skillfully uses light to change
the mood and appearance of the set.
28. Setting the Stage
The costume director works with the director to
design the actors’ costumes.
• Like sets, costumes can be
detailed minimal
29. Setting the Stage
Props (short for properties) are items that the
characters carry or handle onstage.
• The person in charge of props must make sure
that the right props are available to the actors
at the right moments.
30. The Characters
The characters’ speech may take any of the
following forms.
Dialogue: conversations of characters onstage
Monologue: long speech given by one character to others
Soliloquy: speech by a character alone onstage to himself or herself or
to the audience
Asides: remarks made to the audience or to one character; the other
characters onstage do not hear an aside
31. The Audience
Finally, a play needs an audience to
experience the performance
understand the story
respond to the characters
32. The theater must "make its appeal to the
audience rather than to the
individual,”opines Edward A. Wright.
Without an audience there is no theater,
and the symbolic affinity interplay and
affinity between the two prevail. A
bifurcation between them would write
the total failure of drama and the theater.
Wright even insists that the theater
artist” must never forget that he is the
servant of the crowd.”
35. The Philippines has an old theater tradition. Ma.
Teresa Muñoz, in a comprehensive study of theater in
pre-Hispanic Philippines based on anthropological
findings, attests to the fact that even if it is difficult to
ascertain the theatrical forms of the early Filipinos,
much of it being “lost on contact with the new and
more aggressive culture,” the early Philippine drama
stemmed more from historical sources, since “that
theater which had its roots in religion and religious
practice was barely at the threshold of the structure
that constitutes that art.”
36. We had drama even many Men assemble now as their
centuries before the forefathers did to discover
Spaniards set foot on themselves and feel their
Philippine shores in 1521. pulse as they experience
The many external life‟s processes, what
manifestations of this August Strindberg terms
imitation of action—dance, “life‟s two poles, life and
pantomime, acting, song, death, the act of birth and
chant, recitation—be they the act of death, the fight for
performed solely on in the spouse, for the means of
combination, were found in subsistence, for honor, all
the numerous rituals these struggles—with their
observed by the early battlefields, cries of woe,
Filipinos. wounded and dead.”
37. It is said that Ferdinand
Magellan himself was
treated to a very rare
presentation of a native play
“to celebrate the fact that the
Filipinos and Spaniards
were now brothers.” Father
Gaspar de San Agustin
also mentioned that the
early Filipinos were
“especially fond of
comedies and farces, and
therefore, there is no feast of
consequence unless there is
a comedy.”
38. Lucila Hosillos, in her
treaties on the motive power Well-known Filipino drama
for Philippine identity and director and poet Rolando
greatness, states: Tinio expounds in his
“Nationalism has helped “Theater and Its Sense of
create the literature of the Nationality” . “It is perhaps
Filipinos, and in the the theater,” he stresses,
country’s search for “which is the most national
national identity today, of all the arts in the sense
literature has assumed that it is the most revelatory
significance in the of the specific quality of
definition of the Filipino civilization of its audience.”
personality towards the
creation of a national
image.”
39. Three Categories:
Mga Katutubong Dula (Ethnic Plays)
The Filipino Ethnic Plays or “Katutubong Dula” are plays based
on old Filipino folklore and old traditions. They show the
country‟s indigenous culture and traditions. The play,
Pamanhikan (Courtship), for example, focuses on the courtship
rituals in the pre-colonial times.
40. Mga Dula sa Panahon ng Kastila (Plays from the Spanish Era).
Plays
From the Spanish era have a decided influence from the
colonizers. A lot of them revolve around Catholic festivities like
Senakulo (Passion of the Christ), Pinetencia (Penitence) and
Flores de Mayo (May Procession). Some also portray the strain
between the Catholics and the Muslims, like the play Moro-Moro
(The Moors).
41. Dula sa Panahon ng Amerikano (Plays from the American Era)
Finally, the American era ushered in the “sarsuwela” or plays
with singing and dancing. The sarsuwelas in this era were
mostly used as subversive propaganda and had themes about
patriotism and revolution.The most famous of these sarsuwelas
are those made by Severino Reyes, also known as “Ama ng
Dulang Pilipino” or “Father of Philippine Drama”. His most
popular works are: Walang Sugat (Not Wounded, 1902),
Paglipas ng Dilim (After the Darkness, 1920) and Bungangang
Pating (At the Mercy of the Sharks, 1921).
42. The age of the
zarzuelas is
considered the
“Golden Age of
Philippine
Drama,” as many
theater
authorities have
pronounced.
43. Famous Filipino Authors
Nick Joaquin
Wilfrido Ma. Guerero
Roland Tinio
Jose Rizal
Francisco Balagtas
Orlando Nadres
Alberto Florentino
Estrella Alfon
