The document discusses several dramatic devices used in plays: 1. An aside allows a character to address the audience directly while remaining unheard by other characters on stage. It differs from a monologue or soliloquy. 2. A play within a play involves a play being performed by characters within the larger play, often with symbolic or psychological significance. 3. Songs in plays can serve expositional, conflict-narrating, narrational, emotional climax, and summarizing functions in addition to entertainment. They help develop the total dramatic effect.

1. Indranil Sarkar
Assam, India

2. ASIDE, MONOLOGUE AND SOLILOQUY
 Aside: The term aside means ‘A remark made in an undertone so as to be inaudible to
others nearby’.‘
 An aside is a traditional dramatic device. Here, a character conveys important
information to the audience. By convention it is assumed that the character's speech
is unheard to the other characters present on stage. It may be addressed to the
audience directly or represent an unspoken thought. An aside is usually a brief
comment, rather than a speech, such as a monologue or soliloquy.
 An aside differs from a monologue or soliloquy. Unlike a public announcement, it occurs
within the context of the play. An aside is, by convention, a true statement of a
character's thought; a character may be mistaken in an aside, but must not
be dishonest.

3.  An aside is neither a monologue nor a soliloquy. A Monologue may be interpreted
as one character speaking to another without getting (or expecting) a
response. This is because monologue (literally) means, half of a dialogue (mono-
= one, dia- = two. Example: When Henry V delivers his speech to the English camp
in the Saint Crispin's Day speech ("we few, we happy few, we band of brothers")
it is a monologue since he is speaking to other characters.
 A soliloquy is a character speaking his thoughts out loud for the audience to hear.
The lines can be directed either to the audience or, more often, the character is
just speaking to himself.

4. Masque
 Masque : The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in
16th and early 17th century Europe. However, it originated in Italy in forms including
the intermedio. A public version of the masque was called the pageant. A masque
involved music and dancing, singing and acting, within an elaborate stage design. Here,
the architectural framing and costumes were designed by a renowned architect to
present a deferential allegory flattering to the patron. Professional actors and
musicians were hired for the speaking and singing parts. Often, the masquers who did
not speak or sing were courtiers: King James I's queen consort, Anne of Denmark,
frequently danced with her ladies in masques between 1603 and 1611, and Henry VIII
and Charles I performed in the masques at their courts. In the tradition of masque,
Louis XIV danced in ballets at Versailles with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully.

5. Disguise
 A disguise can be anything which conceals or changes a person's physical
appearance, including a wig, glasses, makeup, costume or other ways. Camouflage
is one type of disguise for people, animals and objects. Hats, glasses, change in
hair style or wigs, plastic surgery, and make-up are also used.
 Disguises are used by criminals such as bank robbers and by spies seeking to
avoid identification. A well-known person or celebrity may choose to go
"incognito" in order to avoid unwelcome press attention. In comic books and films
disguises are used by superheroes and in science fiction by aliens. Dressing up in
costumes is a Halloween tradition.

6. Disguise
 In comic book and superhero stories, disguises are used to hide secret identities
and keep special powers secret from ordinary people. For example, Superman
passes himself off as Clark Kent, and Spider-Man disguises himself in a costume
so that he cannot be recognized as Peter Parker.
 In science fiction, aliens often take on a human appearance wearing "human suits"
as a disguise.
 In epic poetry, Odysseus uses the disguise of a beggar to test his family's and
servants' loyalty upon his return from a 20 voyage.
 Disguise is sometimes used in criminal activity and in spying, and is a common
trope in detective fiction and in spy stories. Sherlock Holmes often disguised
himself as somebody else to avoid being recognized.

7. Mime
 Mime: Mime is considered one of the earliest mediums of self-expression. Before there was
spoken language, mime was used to communicate what the primitive people needed or wanted.
Instead of fading into obscurity when the spoken language was developed, mime had became a
form of entertainment. It then developed into a true theatrical form in ancient Greece,
where performers enacted everyday scenes with the help of elaborate gestures. The
principle mimes were known as ethologues, and the scenes they would perform would teach
moral lessons.
 Mime originated in the Theater of Dionysus in Athens. Masked actors performed outdoors, in
daylight, before audiences of 10,000 or more at festivals in honor of Dionysus, the god of
theater. Mime enjoyed much success and growth under Emperor Augustus of Rome.
 The most elaborate form of Mime, known as hypothesis, may have approached the level of
true drama. This would be performed by companies of actors, who would often concentrate
more on the development of their characters, than the plot itself.

8. Mime
 Often one actor would play the part of several individuals in the production. Mime
continued to entertain through the Middle Ages, and reached its height in
sixteenth century Italy, in the form of Commedia dell'Arte. Commedia dell' Arte
originated in the market places of the Italian streets in the early 1500's. Street
performers began donning masks with exaggerated comical features to draw
attention to themselves and to complement their acrobatic skills. The characters
they created became affectionately known as Zanni.
 Basically, there are two major types of mime: literal and abstract or a
combination of both. These types are evident in all the schools of mime. Literal
mime is primarily used for comedy and story theater. Literal mime generally tells
a story with a conflict through the use of a main character. The actions and
visual design clearly tell the viewers the story which is usually humorous.
 Abstract mime is used to generate feelings, thoughts and images from a serious
topic or issue. Normally there is no plot or central character. It is considered a
more intuitive experience or image rather than literal actions.

9. A deus ex machina
 A deus ex machina Latin: "god out of the machine"; plural: dei ex machina) is a
plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly
solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event,
character, ability, or object. The Latin phrase deus ex machina comes to English
usage from Horace's Ars Poetica, where he instructs poets that they must never
resort to a god from the machine to solve their plots. He refers to the
conventions of Greek tragedy, where a crane (mekhane) was used to lower actors
playing gods onto the stage. The machine referred to in the phrase could be
either the crane employed in the task, a calque from the Greek "god from the
machine" ("ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός," apò mēkhanḗs theós), or the riser that brought a
god up from a trap door. The idea is that the device of said god is entirely
artificial or conceived by man

10. A deus ex machina
The Greek tragedian Euripides is often criticized for his frequent use of the
deus ex machina. More than half of Euripides's extant tragedies employ a deus
ex machina in their resolution and some critics go so far as to claim that
Euripides invented the deus ex machina, although Æschylus employed a similar
device in his 'Eumenides'. Aristotle criticized the device in his "Poetics", where
he argued that the resolution of a plot must arise internally, following from
previous action of the play. During the politically turbulent 17th and 18th
Centuries, the deus ex machina was sometimes used to make a controversial
thesis more palatable to the powers of the day. The novelist Andrew Foster
Altschul satirized reality television in a 2011 novel titled Deus Ex Machina.
 The classic novel Lord of the Flies uses a deus ex machina in its conclusion when
the savage children are rescued by a passing navy man.

11. Dance
 Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body,
usually rhythmic and to music,[1] used as a form of expression, social
interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting.
 Dance may also be regarded as a form of nonverbal communication
between humans, and is also performed by other animals (bee dance,
patterns of behaviour such as a mating dance). Gymnastics, figure
skating and synchronized swimming are sports that incorporate dance,
while martial arts kata are often compared to dances. Motion in
ordinarily inanimate objects may also be described as dances (the leaves
danced in the wind).
 Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural,
aesthetic, artistic and moral constraints and range from functional
movement (such as folk dance) to virtuoso techniques such as ballet.

12. Dance
 Dance can be participatory, social or performed for an audience. It can also be ceremonial,
competitive or erotic. Dance movements may be without significance in themselves, such as in
ballet or European folk dance, or have a gestural vocabulary/symbolic system as in many
Asian dances. Dance can embody or express ideas, emotions or tell a story.
 Dancing has evolved many styles. Breakdancing and Krumping are related to the hip hop
culture. African dance is interpretative. Ballet, Ballroom, Waltz, and Tango are classical
styles of dance while Square Dance and the Electric Slide are forms of step dances.
 Every dance, no matter what style, has something in common. It not only involves flexibility
and body movement, but also physics. If the proper physics are not taken into consideration,
injuries may occur.
 Choreography is the art of creating dances. The person who creates (i.e., choreographs) a
dance is known as the choreographer

13. Dance
 What is the importance of ‘Dance’ in a drama?
 “Dance, the most physical of all the arts, is the one that speaks most
eloquently about the implications of mortality -- and at the same time
voices our defiance. No other art form speaks so directly about the
ephemerality of life, or about the human instinct to aim for that perfect
moment of self-realization. No other art form gives such a visible
immediacy to that transience, that striving. Dance happens and is gone,
nothing more than a trace in the air, as evanescent as a dream. What we
treasure about it, as much as the moment of dance itself, is the memory
of that moment. It is an art form that marries celebration to regret: an
art form that, entirely through the language of the body, speaks about
the whole human conundrum.“: Max Wyman

14.  Chorus is a group of actors who function as a unit. It was a characteristic feature
of the Greek tragedy. The members of the chorus shared a common identity,
such as Asian Bacchantes or old men of Thebes. The leader of the chorus was
called choragos. He sometimes spoke and acted separately. In some cases, the
chorus participated directly in the action; in others they were restricted in
observing the action and commenting on it. The chorus also separated the
individual sins by singing and dancing choral odes, though just what the singing
and dancing were like is uncertain. The odes were in strict metrical patterns;
sometimes they were direct comments on the action and characters, and at other
times they were more general statements and judgments. A chorus in Greek
fashion is not common in later plays, although there are instances such as T.S.
Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, in which the Women of Canterbury served as a
chorus.

15.  A play within a play is a dramatic device where a play is performed on stage by characters in
a play, often with other characters forming an "audience". The play within a play often
has symbolic and psychological significance, as well as having an important function in
the plot.
 The device of ‘Play within a play’ was apparently first used by Thomas Kyd in The Spanish
Tragedy around 1587.There it formed the spectacular resolution of the story. William
Shakespeare used this device in A Midsummer Night's Dream and his Hamlet.
 In his use of the play within the play, Kyd seemed to take Aristotle's idea of drama
as catharsis to its apocalyptic conclusion.
 Play within a play can also be an ironic comment on drama itself, with inversions and reversals
of its basic elements: actors become authors, while the audience in the theatre sometimes
loses its privileged omniscient position because it is suddenly not clear what the characters
on stage are doing.
 Alternatively, a play might be about the production of a play, and include the performance of
all or part of the play, as in Noises Off or The Producers.

16. Songs and Music
 ‘Songs and Music’ are essential components of a
drama. They help developing total dramatic effect
in a play or theatre. Music provides various
functions in a play in addition to their
entertainment role. Songs in a play may be viewed
under the following heads according to their
functions:
 I.Exposition songs: In ancient Greek dramas, the
chorus used to introduce the plot and purpose of
the drama to the audience in the form of
Exposition songs. It has been proved a very
effective dramatic device. The tradition has been
continuing from ‘Dr.Faustus’ to ‘Life of Galileo’.

17. Songs and Music
 ii.Conflict songs: At the heart of every drama lies conflict.
Bernard says: ‘No conflict, No Drama’. A conflict song
narrates the mental-conflict of the character when he
struggles to attain differing goals. Sometimes these songs
narrate the general conflict of the plot.
 iii. Narration Songs: Not all pertinent action in drama
occurs on stage. Narration songs describe events that we
otherwise do not see.
 iv. Emotional climax songs: When characters reach a point
in the drama where they can’t help but explode with
feelings of love or success or simply the joy of life, music
serves to amplify these emotions to a level above mere
words. Emotional climax songs are exuberant, celebratory,
and infectious, allowing the audience to share the
characters’ passion and excitement.
 iv.Summary songs: Similar to narration songs, summary
songs compress lengthy amounts of time into one number.