The document discusses the history and development of drama across different cultures and time periods. It begins with an overview of Greek drama and its origins in dithyrambs honoring Dionysus. It then covers the developments of tragedy, comedy, and satire in ancient Greece. Next it discusses the traditions of drama in Rome, the Middle Ages focusing on religious plays, and the Renaissance with a focus on developments in Italy, France, Spain, and England. It concludes with an overview of 18th century sentimental comedy and the rise of realism and melodrama in the 19th century.

1. Drama
1. a. 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.
b. A serious narrative work or program for television, radio, or the cinema.
2. Theatrical plays of a particular kind or period: Elizabethan drama.
3. The art or practice of writing or producing dramatic works.
4. A situation or succession of events in real life having the dramatic progression or emotional
effect characteristic of a play: the drama of the prisoner's escape and recapture.
5. The quality or condition of being dramatic: a summit meeting full of drama.
[Late Latin drāma, drāmat-, from Greek, from drān, to do, perform.]
drama, the general term for performances in which actors impersonate the actions and speech of
fictional or historical characters (or non‐human entities) for the entertainment of an audience,
either on a stage or by means of a broadcast; or a particular example of this art, i.e. a play. Drama
is usually expected to represent stories showing situations of conflict between characters,
although the monodrama is a special case in which only one performer speaks. Drama is a major
genre of literature, but includes non‐literary forms (in mime), and has several dimensions that lie
beyond the domain of the literary dramatist or playwright (see mise en scène). The major
dramatic genres in the West are comedy and tragedy, but several other kinds of dramatic work
fall outside these categories (see drame, history play, masque, melodrama, morality play,
mystery play, tragicomedy). Dramatic poetry is a category of verse composition for theatrical
performance; the term is now commonly extended, however, to non‐theatrical poems that
involve a similar kind of impersonation, as in the closet drama and the dramatic monologue.
Western drama
drama, Western, plays produced in the Western world. This article discusses the development of
Western drama in general; for further information see the various national literature articles.
Greek Drama
The Western dramatic tradition has its origins in ancient Greece. The precise evolution of its
main divisions-tragedy, comedy, and satire-is not definitely known. According to Aristotle,
Greek drama, or, more explicitly, Greek tragedy, originated in the dithyramb. This was a choral
hymn to the god Dionysus and involved exchanges between a lead singer and the chorus. It is
thought that the dithyramb was sung at the Dionysia, an annual festival honoring Dionysus.
Tradition has it that at the Dionysia of 534 B.C., during the reign of Pisistratus, the lead
singer of the dithyramb, a man named Thespis, added to the chorus an actor with whom he
carried on a dialogue, thus initiating the possibility of dramatic action. Thespis is credited with
the invention of tragedy. Eventually, Aeschylus introduced a second actor to the drama and
Sophocles a third, Sophocles' format being continued by Euripides, the last of the great classical
Greek dramatists.
Generally, the earlier Greek tragedies place more emphasis on the chorus than the later
ones. In the majestic plays of Aeschylus, the chorus serves to underscore the personalities and
situations of the characters and to provide ethical comment on the action. Much of Aeschylus'
most beautiful poetry is contained in the choruses of his plays. The increase in the number of
actors resulted in less concern with communal problems and beliefs and more with dramatic
conflict between individuals.
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2. Accompanying this emphasis on individuals' interaction, from the time of Aeschylus to that
of Euripides, there was a marked tendency toward realism. Euripides' characters are ordinary, not
godlike, and the gods themselves are introduced more as devices of plot manipulation (as in the
use of the deus ex machina in Medea, 431 B.C.) than as strongly felt representations of
transcendent power. Utilizing three actors, Sophocles developed dramatic action beyond
anything Aeschylus had achieved with only two and also introduced more natural speech.
However, he did not lose a sense of the godlike in man and man's affairs, as Euripides often did.
Thus, it is Sophocles who best represents the classical balance between the human and divine,
the realistic and the symbolic.
Greek comedy is divided by scholars into Old Comedy (5th cent. B.C.), Middle Comedy
(c.404-c.321 B.C.), and New Comedy (c.320-c.264 B.C.). The sole literary remains of Old
Comedy are the plays of Aristophanes, characterized by obscenity, political satire, fantasy, and
strong moral overtones. While there are no extant examples of Middle Comedy, it is conjectured
that the satire, obscenity, and fantasy of the earlier plays were much mitigated during this
transitional period. Most extant examples of New Comedy are from the works of Menander;
these comedies are realistic and elegantly written, often revolving around a love-interest.
Roman Drama
The Roman theater never approached the heights of the Greek, and the Romans themselves
had little interest in serious dramatic endeavors, being drawn toward sensationalism and
spectacle. The earliest Roman dramatic attempts were simply translations from the Greek.
Gnaeus Naevius (c.270-c.199 B.C.) and his successors imitated Greek models in tragedies that
never transcended the level of violent melodrama. Even the nine tragedies of the philosopher and
statesman Seneca are gloomy and lurid, emphasizing the sensational aspects of Greek myth; they
are noted primarily for their inflated rhetoric. Seneca became an important influence on
Renaissance tragedy, but it is unlikely that his plays were intended for more than private
readings.
Although Roman tragedy produced little of worth, a better judgment may be passed on the
comedies of Plautus and Terence. Plautus incorporated native Roman elements into the plots and
themes of Menander, producing plays characterized by farce, intrigue, romance, and sentiment.
Terence was a more polished stylist who wrote for and about the upper classes and dispensed
with the element of farce.
The Roman preference for spectacle and the Christian suppression of drama led to a virtual
cessation of dramatic production during the decline of the Roman Empire. Pantomimes
accompanied by a chorus developed out of tragedy, and comic mimes were popular until the 4th
cent. A.D. (see pantomime). It is this mime tradition, carried on by traveling performers, that
provided the theatrical continuity between the ancient world and the medieval. The Roman mime
tradition has been suggested as the origin of the commedia dell'arte of the Italian Renaissance,
but this conjecture has never been proved.
Medieval Drama
While the Christian church did much to suppress the performance of plays, paradoxically it
is in the church that medieval drama began. The first record of this beginning is the trope in the
Easter service known as the Quem quaeritis [whom you seek]. Tropes, originally musical
elaborations of the church service, gradually evolved into drama; eventually the Latin lines
telling of the Resurrection were spoken, rather than sung, by priests who represented the angels
and the two Marys at the tomb of Jesus. Thus, simple interpolations developed into grandiose
cycles of mystery plays, depicting biblical episodes from the Creation to Judgment Day. The
most famous of these plays is the Second Shepherds' Play.
Another important type that developed from church liturgy was the miracle play, based on
the lives of saints rather than on scripture. The miracle play reached its peak in France and the
mystery play in England. Both types gradually became secularized, passing into the hands of
trade guilds or professional actors. The Second Shepherds' Play, for all its religious seriousness,
is most noteworthy for its elements of realism and farce, while the miracle plays in France often
emphasized comedy and adventure (see miracle play).
The morality play, a third type of religious drama, appeared early in the 15th cent. Morality plays
were religious allegories, the most famous being Everyman. Another type of drama popular in
medieval times was the interlude, which can be generally defined as a dramatic work with
characteristics of the morality play that is primarily intended for entertainment.
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3. Renaissance Drama
By the advent of the Renaissance in the 15th and 16th cent., most European countries had
established native traditions of religious drama and farce that contended with the impact of the
newly discovered Greek and Roman plays. Little had been known of classical drama during the
Middle Ages, and evidently the only classical imitations during that period were the Christian
imitations of Terence by the Saxon nun Hrotswitha in the 10th cent.
Italy
The translation and imitation of the classics occurred first in Italy, with Terence, Plautus,
and Seneca as the models. The Italians strictly applied their interpretation of Aristotle's rules for
the drama, and this rigidity was primarily responsible for the failure of Italian Renaissance
drama. Some liveliness appeared in the comic sphere, particularly in the works of Ariosto and in
Machiavelli's satiric masterpiece, La Mandragola (1524). The pastoral drama-set in the country
and depicting the romantic affairs of rustic people, usually shepherds and shepherdesses-was
more successful than either comedy or tragedy. Notable Italian practitioners of the genre were
Giovanni Battista Guarini (1537-1612) and Torquato Tasso.
The true direction of the Italian stage was toward the spectacular and the musical. A popular
Italian Renaissance form was the intermezzo, which presented music and lively entertainment
between the acts of classical imitations. The native taste for music and theatricality led to the
emergence of the opera in the 16th cent. and the triumph of this form on the Italian stage in the
17th cent. Similarly, the commedia dell'arte, emphasizing comedy and improvisation and
featuring character types familiar to a contemporary audience, was more popular than academic
imitations of classical comedy.
France
Renaissance drama appeared somewhat later in France than in Italy. Estienne Jodelle's
Senecan tragedy Cleopatre captive (1553) marks the beginning of classical imitation in France.
The French drama initially suffered from the same rigidity as the Italian, basing itself on Roman
models and Italian imitations. However, in the late 16th cent. in France there was a romantic
reaction to classical dullness, led by Alexandre Hardy, France's first professional playwright.
This romantic trend was stopped in the 17th cent. by Cardinal Richelieu, who insisted on a
return to classic forms. Richelieu's judgment, however, bore fruit in the triumphs of the French
neoclassical tragedies of Jean Racine and the comedies of Molière. The great tragedies of Pierre
Corneille, although classical in their grandeur and in their concern with noble characters, are
decidedly of the Renaissance in their exaltation of man's ability, by force of will, to transcend
adverse circumstances.
Spain
Renaissance drama in Spain and England was more successful than in France and Italy
because the two former nations were able to transform classical models with infusions of native
characteristics. In Spain the two leading Renaissance playwrights were Lope de Vega and Pedro
Calderón de la Barca. Earlier, Lope de Rueda had set the tone for future Spanish drama with
plays that are romantic, lyrical, and generally in the mixed tragicomic form. Lope de Vega wrote
an enormous number of plays of many types, emphasizing plot, character, and romantic action.
Best known for his La vida es sueño [life is a dream], a play that questions the nature of reality,
Calderón was a more controlled and philosophical writer than Lope.
England
The English drama of the 16th cent. showed from the beginning that it would not be bound
by classical rules. Elements of farce, morality, and a disregard for the unities of time, place, and
action inform the early comedies Gammer Gurton's Needle and Ralph Roister Doister (both
c.1553) and the Senecan tragedy Gorboduc (1562). William Shakespeare's great work was
foreshadowed by early essays in the historical chronicle play, by elements of romance found in
the works of John Lyly, by revenge plays such as Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy (c.1586)-again
inspired by the works of Seneca-and by Christopher Marlowe's development of blank verse and
his deepening of the tragic perception.
Shakespeare, of course, stands as the supreme dramatist of the Renaissance period, equally
adept at writing tragedies, comedies, or chronicle plays. His great achievements include the
perfection of a verse form and language that capture the spirit of ordinary speech and yet stand
above it to give a special dignity to his characters and situations; an unrivaled subtlety of
characterization; and a marvelous ability to unify plot, character, imagery, and verse movement.
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4. With the reign of James I the English drama began to decline until the closing of the theaters by
the Puritans in 1642. This period is marked by sensationalism and rhetoric in tragedy, as in the
works of John Webster and Thomas Middleton, spectacle in the form of the masque, and a
gradual turn to polished wit in comedy, begun by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher and
furthered by James Shirley. The best plays of the Jacobean period are the comedies of Ben
Jonson, in which he satirized contemporary life by means of his own invention, the comedy of
humours
Eighteenth-Century Drama
The influence of Restoration comedy can be seen in the 18th cent. in the plays of Oliver
Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. This century also ushered in the middle-class or
domestic drama, which treated the problems of ordinary people. George Lillo's London
Merchant; or, The History of George Barnwell (1731), is an important example of this type of
play because it brought the bourgeois tragic hero to the English stage.
Such playwrights as Sir Richard Steele and Colley Cibber in England and Marivaux in
France contributed to the development of the genteel, sentimental comedy. While the political
satire in the plays of Henry Fielding and in John Gay's Beggar's Opera (1728) seemed to offer a
more interesting potential than the sentiment of Cibber, this line of development was cut off by
the Licensing Act of 1737, which required government approval before a play could be
produced. The Italian Carlo Goldoni, who wrote realistic comedies with fairly sophisticated
characterizations, also tended toward middle-class moralizing. His contemporary, Count Carlo
Gozzi, was more ironic and remained faithful to the spirit of the commedia dell'arte.
Prior to the surge of German romanticism in the late 18th cent., two playwrights stood apart
from the trend toward sentimental bourgeois realism. Voltaire tried to revive classical models
and introduced exotic Eastern settings, although his tragedies tend to be more philosophical than
dramatic. Similarly, the Italian Count Vittorio Alfieri sought to restore the spirit of the ancients
to his drama, but the attempt was vitiated by his chauvinism.
The Sturm und Drang in Germany represented a romantic reaction against French neoclassicism
and was supported by an upsurge of German interest in Shakespeare, who was viewed at the time
as the greatest of the romantics. Gotthold Lessing, Friedrich von Schiller, and Goethe were the
principal figures of this movement, but the plays produced by the three are frequently marred by
sentimentality and too heavy a burden of philosophical ideas.
Nineteenth-Century Drama
The romantic movement did not blossom in French drama until the 1820s, and then primarily in
the work of Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas père, while in England the great Romantic poets
did not produce important drama, although both Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley were
practitioners of the closet drama. Burlesque and mediocre melodrama reigned supreme on the
English stage.
Although melodrama was aimed solely at producing superficial excitement, its development,
coupled with the emergence of realism in the 19th cent., resulted in more serious drama. Initially,
the melodrama dealt in such superficially exciting materials as the gothic castle with its
mysterious lord for a villain, but gradually the characters and settings moved closer to the
realities of contemporary life.
The concern for generating excitement led to a more careful consideration of plot construction,
reflected in the smoothly contrived climaxes of the "well-made" plays of Eugène Scribe and
Victorien Sardou of France and Arthur Wing Pinero of England. The work of Émile Augier and
Alexandre Dumas fils combined the drama of ideas with the "well-made" play. Realism had
perhaps its most profound expression in the works of the great 19th-century Russian dramatists:
Nikolai Gogol, A. N. Ostrovsky, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, and Maxim
Gorky. Many of the Russian dramatists emphasized character and satire rather than plot in their
works.
Related to realism is naturalism, which can be defined as a selective realism emphasizing the
more sordid and pessimistic aspects of life. An early forerunner of this style in the drama is
Georg Büchner's powerful tragedy Danton's Death (1835), and an even earlier suggestion may
be seen in the pessimistic romantic tragedies of Heinrich von Kleist. Friedrich Hebbel wrote
grimly naturalistic drama in the middle of the 19th cent., but the naturalistic movement is most
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5. commonly identified with the "slice-of-life" theory of Émile Zola, which had a profound effect
on 20th-century playwrights.
Henrik Ibsen of Norway brought to a climax the realistic movement of the 19th cent. and also
served as a bridge to 20th-century symbolism. His realistic dramas of ideas surpass other such
works because they blend a complex plot, a detailed setting, and middle-class yet extraordinary
characters in an organic whole. Ibsen's later plays, such as The Master Builder (1892), are
symbolic, marking a trend away from realism that was continued by August Strindberg's dream
plays, with their emphasis on the spiritual, and by the plays of the Belgian Maurice Maeterlinck,
who incorporated into drama the theories of the symbolist poets (see symbolists).
While these antirealistic developments took place on the Continent, two playwrights were
making unique contributions to English theater. Oscar Wilde produced comedies of manners that
compare favorably with the works of Congreve, and George Bernard Shaw brought the play of
ideas to fruition with penetrating intelligence and singular wit.
Twentieth-Century Drama
During the 20th cent., especially after World War I, Western drama became more internationally
unified and less the product of separate national literary traditions. Throughout the century
realism, naturalism, and symbolism (and various combinations of these) continued to inform
important plays. Among the many 20th-century playwrights who have written what can be
broadly termed naturalist dramas are Gerhart Hauptmann (German), John Galsworthy (English),
John Millington Synge and Sean O'Casey (Irish), and Eugene O'Neill, Clifford Odets, and Lillian
Hellman (American).
An important movement in early 20th-century drama was expressionism. Expressionist
playwrights tried to convey the dehumanizing aspects of 20th-century technological society
through such devices as minimal scenery, telegraphic dialogue, talking machines, and characters
portrayed as types rather than individuals. Notable playwrights who wrote expressionist dramas
include Ernst Toller and Georg Kaiser (German), Karel Čapek (Czech), and Elmer Rice and
Eugene O'Neill (American). The 20th cent. also saw the attempted revival of drama in verse, but
although such writers as William Butler Yeats, W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Christopher Fry, and
Maxwell Anderson produced effective results, verse drama was no longer an important form in
English. In Spanish, however, the poetic dramas of Federico García Lorca are placed among the
great works of Spanish literature.
Three vital figures of 20th-century drama are the American Eugene O'Neill, the German Bertolt
Brecht, and the Italian Luigi Pirandello. O'Neill's body of plays in many forms-naturalistic,
expressionist, symbolic, psychological-won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936 and
indicated the coming-of-age of American drama. Brecht wrote dramas of ideas, usually
promulgating socialist or Marxist theory. In order to make his audience more intellectually
receptive to his theses, he endeavored-by using expressionist techniques-to make them
continually aware that they were watching a play, not vicariously experiencing reality. For
Pirandello, too, it was paramount to fix an awareness of his plays as theater; indeed, the major
philosophical concern of his dramas is the difficulty of differentiating between illusion and
reality.
World War II and its attendant horrors produced a widespread sense of the utter meaninglessness
of human existence. This sense is brilliantly expressed in the body of plays that have come to be
known collectively as the theater of the absurd. By abandoning traditional devices of the drama,
including logical plot development, meaningful dialogue, and intelligible characters, absurdist
playwrights sought to convey modern humanity's feelings of bewilderment, alienation, and
despair-the sense that reality is itself unreal. In their plays human beings often portrayed as
dupes, clowns who, although not without dignity, are at the mercy of forces that are inscrutable.
Probably the most famous plays of the theater of the absurd are Eugene Ionesco's Bald Soprano
(1950) and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1953). The sources of the theater of the absurd
are diverse; they can be found in the tenets of surrealism, Dadaism (see Dada), and
existentialism; in the traditions of the music hall, vaudeville, and burlesque; and in the films of
Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Playwrights whose works can be roughly classed as
belonging to the theater of the absurd are Jean Genet (French), Max Frisch and Friedrich
5

6. Dürrenmatt (Swiss), Fernando Arrabal (Spanish), and the early plays of Edward Albee
(American). The pessimism and despair of the 20th cent. also found expression in the
existentialist dramas of Jean-Paul Sartre, in the realistic and symbolic dramas of Arthur Miller,
Tennessee Williams, and Jean Anouilh, and in the surrealist plays of Jean Cocteau.
Somewhat similar to the theater of the absurd is the so-called theater of cruelty, derived from the
ideas of Antonin Artaud, who, writing in the 1930s, foresaw a drama that would assault its
audience with movement and sound, producing a visceral rather than an intellectual reaction.
After the violence of World War II and the subsequent threat of the atomic bomb, his approach
seemed particularly appropriate to many playwrights. Elements of the theater of cruelty can be
found in the brilliantly abusive language of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956) and
Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), in the ritualistic aspects of some of
Genet's plays, in the masked utterances and enigmatic silences of Harold Pinter's "comedies of
menace," and in the orgiastic abandon of Julian Beck's Paradise Now! (1968); it was fully
expressed in Peter Brooks's production of Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade (1964).
During the last third of the 20th cent. a few continental European dramatists, such as Dario Fo in
Italy and Heiner Müller in Germany, stand out in the theater world. However, for the most part,
the countries of the continent saw an emphasis on creative trends in directing rather than a
flowering of new plays. In the United States and England, however, many dramatists old and
new continued to flourish, with numerous plays of the later decades of the 20th cent. (and the
early 21st cent.) echoing the trends of the years preceding them.
Realism in a number of guises-psychological, social, and political-continued to be a force in such
British works as David Storey's Home (1971), Sir Alan Ayckbourn's Norman Conquests trilogy
(1974), and David Hare's Amy's View (1998); in such Irish dramas as Brian Friel's Dancing at
Lughnasa (1990) and Martin McDonagh's 1990s Leenane trilogy; and in such American plays as
Jason Miller's That Championship Season (1972), Lanford Wilson's Talley's Folly (1979), and
John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation (1990). In keeping with the tenor of the times, many of
these and other works of the period were marked by elements of wit, irony, and satire.
A witty surrealism also characterized some of the late 20th cent.'s theater, particularly the
brilliant wordplay and startling juxtapositions of the many plays of England's Tom Stoppard. In
addition, two of late-20th-century America's most important dramatists, Sam Shepard and David
Mamet (as well as their followers and imitators), explored American culture with a kind of
hyper-realism mingled with echoes of the theater of cruelty in the former's Buried Child (1978),
the latter's Glengarry Glen Ross (1983), and other works. While each exhibited his own very
distinctive voice and vision, both playwrights achieved many of their effects through stark
settings, austere language in spare dialog, meaningful silences, the projection of a powerful
streak of menace, and outbursts of real or implied violence.
The late decades of the 20th century were also a time of considerable experiment and
iconoclasm. Experimental dramas of the 1960s and 70s by such groups as Beck's Living Theater
and Jerzy Grotowski's Polish Laboratory Theatre were followed by a mixing and merging of
various kinds of media with aspects of postmodernism, improvisational techniques, performance
art, and other kinds of avant-garde theater. Some of the era's more innovative efforts included
productions by theater groups such as New York's La MaMa (1961-) and Mabou Mines (1970-)
and Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Co. (1976-); the Canadian writer-director Robert Lepage's
intricate, sometimes multilingual works, e.g. Tectonic Plates (1988); the inventive one-man
shows of such monologuists as Eric Bogosian, Spalding Gray, and John Leguizamo; the
transgressive drag dramas of Charles Ludlam's Ridiculous Theater, e.g., The Mystery of Irma
Vep (1984); and the operatic multimedia extravaganzas of Robert Wilson, e.g. White Raven
(1999).
Thematically, the social upheavals of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s-particularly the civil rights and
women's movements, gay liberation, and the AIDS crisis-provided impetus for new plays that
explored the lives of minorities and women. Beginning with Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in
the Sun (1959), drama by and about African Americans emerged as a significant theatrical trend.
In the 1960s plays such as James Baldwin's Blues for Mr. Charley (1964), Amiri Baraka's
searing Dutchman (1964), and Charles Gordone's No Place to Be Somebody (1967) explored
black American life; writers including Ed Bullins (e.g., The Taking of Miss Janie, 1975),
Ntozake Shange (e.g., For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is
6

7. Enuf, 1976) and Charles Fuller (e.g., A Soldier's Play, 1981) carried these themes into later
decades. One of the most distinctive and prolific of the century's African-American playwrights,
August Wilson, debuted on Broadway in 1984 with Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and continued to
define the black American experience in his ongoing dramatic cycle into the next century.
Feminist and other women-centered themes dramatized by contemporary female playwrights
were plentiful in the 1970s and extended in the following decades. Significant figures included
England's Caryl Churchill (e.g., the witty Top Girls, 1982), the Cuban-American experimentalist
Maria Irene Forńes (e.g., Fefu and Her Friends, 1977) and American realists including Beth
Henley (e.g., Crimes of the Heart, 1978), Marsha Norman (e.g., 'Night Mother, 1982), and
Wendy Wasserstein (e.g., The Heidi Chronicles, 1988). Skilled monologuists also provided
provocative female-themed one-women shows such as Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues
(1996) and various solo theatrical performances by Lily Tomlin, Karen Finley, Anna Deveare
Smith, Sarah Jones, and others.
Gay themes (often in works by gay playwrights) also marked the later decades of the 20th cent.
Homosexual characters had been treated sympathetically but in the context of pathology in such
earlier 20th-century works as Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour (1934) and Robert
Anderson's Tea and Sympathy (1953). Gay subjects were presented more explicitly during the
1960s, notably in the English farces of Joe Orton and Matt Crowley's witty but grim portrait of
pre-Stonewall American gay life, The Boys in the Band (1968). In later years gay experience was
explored more frequently and with greater variety and openness, notably in Britain in Martin
Sherman's Bent (1979) and Peter Gill's Mean Tears (1987) and in the United States in Jane
Chambers' Last Summer at Bluefish Cove (1980), Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy (1981),
Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart (1986), David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly (1988), which also
dealt with Asian identity, and Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey (1993). Tony Kushner's acclaimed two-part
Angels in America (1991-92) is generally considered the century's most brilliant and innovative
theatrical treatment of the contemporary gay world.
Bibliography
See A. Nicoll, World Drama from Aeschylus to Anouilh (1950); J. Gassner, Masters of the
Drama (3d ed. 1954); M. Bieber, The History of Greek and Roman Theatre (2d ed. 1961); B.
Clark, ed., European Theories of the Drama (rev. ed. 1965); G. Freedley and J. A. Reeves, A
History of the Theatre (3d ed. 1968); M. Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (1961, repr. 1969); J.
Gassner and E. Quinn, ed., The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama (1969); G. E. Wellarth,
The Theatre of Protest and Paradox (2d ed. 1970); C. J. Stratman, Bibliography of Medieval
Drama (2d ed. 1972); S. Cheney, The Theatre (rev. ed. 1972); R. Gilman, The Making of
Modern Drama (1974); J. L. Styan, ed., Modern Drama in Theory and Practice (3 vol., 1981-
83); G. Loney, Twentieth Century Theater (2 vol., 1983); J. Roose-Evans, Experimental Theater
(1984); P. Hartnoll The Theatre: A Concise History (rev. ed. 1985) and, ed., The Oxford
Companion to the Theatre (rev. ed. 1990); R. and H. Leacroft, Theatre and Playhouse (1988); O.
G. Brockett and R. R. Findlay, Century of Innovation: A History of European and American
Theatre and Drama Since the Late 19th Century (2d ed. 1990); G. R. Kernodle, The Theatre in
History (1990); F. H. Londre, The History of World Theater (1991); E. Wilson and A. Goldfarb,
Theater: The Lively Art (2d ed. 1991); G. Wickham, A History of the Theatre (2d ed. 1992); D.
Rubin, ed., The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre (5 vol., 1994-98); M. Banham,
ed., The Cambridge Guide to Theatre (rev. ed. 1995); O. G. Brockett, History of the Theatre (7th
ed. 1995); R. Drain, ed., Twentieth-Century Theater: A Sourcebook of Radical Thinking (1995);
M. C. Henderson, Theater in America (1996); D. B. Wilmeth and L. T. Miller, ed., The
Cambridge Guide to American Theatre (1996); D. B. Wilmeth and C. Bigsby, ed., The
Cambridge History of American Theatre (3 vol., 2000); G. Bordman and T. S. Hischak, The
Oxford Companion to American Theatre (3d ed. 2004).
Drama
What this handout is about
7

8. This handout identifies common questions about drama, discusses the elements of drama that are
most often discussed in theater classes, provides a few strategies for planning and writing an
effective paper, and identifies various resources for research in theater history and dramatic
criticism.
What is drama? And how do you write about it?)
Drama is tension. In the context of a play in a theatre, tension often means that the audience is
expecting something to happen between the characters on stage. Will they shoot each other? Will
they finally confess their undying love for one another? Will Oedipus figure out that he was the
one that caused the plague by killing his father and sleeping with his mother?
For instructors in academic departments, whether the classes are about theatrical literature,
theater history, performance studies, acting, or technical aspects of a production, writing about
drama often means finding reasons why and how the plays we watch are filled with tension and
excitement. Of course, one particular production may not be as exciting as it's supposed to be. In
fact, it may not be exciting at all. Writing about drama can also involve figuring out why and
how a production went horribly, horribly wrong.
Two of our other handouts might be useful if you need to do research in the specialized field of
Performance Studies (a branch of Communication Studies) or want to focus especially closely on
poetic or powerful language in a play:
Plays, productions, and performances
Talking about these three things can be difficult, especially since there's so much overlap in the
uses of the terms. For the most part, plays are what's on the page. There are countless exceptions
to this idea, but it's always worthwhile to keep an eye on what you mean by this term. A
production of a play is a series of performances, each of which may have its own idiosyncratic
features. For example, one production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night might set the play in
1940's Manhattan and another might set the play on an Alpaca farm in New Zealand.
Furthermore, in a particular performance (say, Tuesday night) of that production, the actor
playing Malvolio might get fed up with playing the role as an Alpaca herder, shout about the
indignity of the whole thing, curse Shakespeare for ever writing the play, and stomp off the
stage. See how that works?
Be aware that the above terms are sometimes used interchangeably—but the overlapping
elements of each are often the most exciting things to talk about. For example, a series of
particularly bad performances might distract from excellent production values: If the actor
playing Falstaff repeatedly trips over a lance and falls off the stage, the audience may not notice
the spectacular set design behind him. In the same way, a particularly dynamic and inventive
script may so bedazzle an audience that they never notice the inept lighting scheme.
A few analyzable elements of plays
This brings us to the wonderful variety of things that you can gawk at, ponder, and write about
when you go to see a play. Playwrights are called playwrights because, like cartwrights build
carts and shipwrights build ships, playwrights build plays. The reason that the word still has that
sense of "builder" or "maker" (even if the playwright actually only scribbles on pages in his or
her garret) is because plays, whether considered as literary works or as cultural artifacts, rarely
succeed on stage without a certain understanding of the concrete bits and pieces that end up on
the planks, under the lights, and in front of an audience. To put it another way: the words of a
play have a context.
For the play itself, some important contexts to consider are
· The time period in which the play was written
· The playwright's biography and other works
· Contemporaneous works of theater (plays written or produced by other artists)
· The language of the play
8

9. Depending on your assignment, you may want to focus on any one of these elements exclusively
or compare and contrast two or more of them. Keep in mind that any one of these elements may
be more than enough for a dissertation, let alone a short reaction paper. Since a number of
academic assignments ask you to pay attention to the language of the play and since it might be
the most complicated thing to work with, it's worth looking at a few of the ways you might be
asked to deal with it in more detail.
Language
There are countless ways that you can talk about how language works in a play, a production, or
a particular performance. Given a choice, you should probably focus on words, phrases, lines, or
scenes that really struck you, things that you still remember weeks after reading the play or
seeing the performance. You'll have a much easier time writing about a bit of language that you
feel strongly about (love it or hate it).
That said, here are two common ways to talk about the way language works in a play:
1. How characters are constructed by their language
If you have a strong impression of a character, especially if you haven't seen it on stage,
you probably remember one line or bit of dialogue that really captures who that character
is. Playwrights often distinguish their characters with idiosyncratic or at least
individualized manners of speaking. Take this example from Oscar Wilde's The
Importance of Being Earnest:
ALGERNON: Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?
LANE: I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.
ALGERNON: I'm sorry for that, for your sake. I don't play accurately—anyone
can play accurately—but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is
concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.
LANE: Yes, sir.
ALGERNON: And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber
sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell?
This early moment in the play contributes enormously to what the audience thinks about
the aristocratic Algernon and his servant, Lane. If you were to talk about language in this
scene, you could discuss Lane's reserved replies (Are they funny? Do they indicate
familiarity or sarcasm? How do you think of a servant who replies in that way?) or
Algernon's witty responses (Does Algernon really care what Lane thinks? Is he talking
more to hear himself? What does that say about how the audience is supposed to see
Algernon?). Algernon's manner of speech is part of who his character is. If you are
analyzing a particular performance, you might want to comment on the actor's delivery of
these lines: Was his vocal inflection appropriate? Did it show something about the
character?
2. How language contributes to scene and mood
Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance plays often use verbal tricks and nuances to convey
the setting and time of the play because they didn't have elaborate special-effects
technology to create theatrical illusions. For example, most scenes from Shakespeare's
Macbeth take place at night. The play was originally performed in an open-air theatre in
the bright and sunny afternoon. How did Shakespeare communicate the fact that it was
night-time in the play? Mainly by starting scenes like this:
BANQUO: How goes the night, boy?
FLEANCE: The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
BANQUO: And she goes down at twelve.
FLEANCE: I take't, 'tis later, sir.
BANQUO: Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heaven; Their candles are
all out. Take thee that too. A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, And yet I
would not sleep: merciful powers, Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose!
9

10. Enter MACBETH, and a Servant with a torch
Give me my sword.
Who's there?
Characters entering with torches is a pretty big clue, as is having a character say, "It's
night." Later in the play, the question, "Who's there?" recurs a number of times,
establishing the illusion that the characters can't see each other. The sense of encroaching
darkness and the general mysteriousness of night contributes to a number of other themes
and motifs in the play.
Productions and performances
Productions
For productions as a whole, some important elements to consider are:
· Venue: How big is the theatre? Is this a professional or amateur acting company? What
kind of resources do they have? How does this affect the show?
· Costumes: What is everyone wearing? Is it appropriate to the historical period? Modern?
Trendy? Old-fashioned? Does it fit the character? What does the costume make you think
about the character? How does this affect the show?
· Set design: What does the set look like? Does it try to create a sense of "realism"? Does it
set the play in a particular historical period? What impressions does the set create? How
does this affect the show?
· Lighting design: Are characters ever in the dark? Are there spotlights? Does light come
through windows? From above? From below? Is any tinted or colored light projected?
How does this affect the show?
· "Idea" or "concept": Do the set and lighting designs seem to work together to produce a
certain interpretation? Do costumes and other elements seem coordinated? How does this
affect the show?
You've probably noticed that each of these ends with the question, "How does this affect the
show?" That's because you should be connecting everything, every detail that you analyze back
to this question. If a particularly weird costume (King Henry in scuba gear) suggests something
about the character (King Henry has gone off the deep end, literally and figuratively), then you
can ask yourself, "Does this add or detract from the show?" (King Henry having an interest in
aquatic mammalia may not have been what Shakespeare had in mind.)
Performances
For individual performances, you can analyze all the items considered above (for plays and
performances) in the light of how they might have been different the night before. For example,
some important elements to consider are:
· Individual acting performances: Not how brilliant Hamlet was, but how brilliant, say,
John Gielgud's Hamlet was? What did the actor playing the part bring to the
performance? Was there anything particularly moving about the performance that night
that surprised you, that you didn't imagine from reading the play beforehand (if you did
so)?
· Mishaps, flubs, and fire alarms: Did the actors mess up? Did the performance grind to a
halt or did it continue?
· Audience reactions: Was there applause? At inappropriate points? Did someone fall
asleep and snore loudly in the second act? Did anyone cry? Did anyone walk out in utter
outrage?
Response papers
10

11. Instructors in drama classes often want to know what you really think. This can have its
advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, you may find it easier to express yourself
without the pressure of specific guidelines or restrictions. On the other hand, it may be
frustrating not to have anything specific to write about. Hopefully, the elements and topics listed
above can also provide you with a jumping-off point for more open-ended responses, ie. How
did the lighting make you feel? Nervous? Bored? Distracted?
Most of the time, responses are directed toward individual performances that you go see, so you
should feel free to be as specific as possible. One the easiest ways to do this is to remember that
most of the time, you can say more about less. You'll have a much more difficult time if you start
out writing about "imagery" or "language" in a play than if you start by writing about that
ridiculous face Helena made when she found out Lysander didn't love her anymore.
If you're really having trouble getting started, here's a three point plan for responding to a piece
of theater.
1. Make a list of five or six specific words, images, or moments that caught your attention
while you were sitting in your seat.
2. Answer one of the following questions: Did any of those moments contribute to your
enjoyment or loathing of the play? Did any of these moments seem to contribute or
detract from any overall theme that the play may have had? Did any of these moments
make you think of something completely different and wholly irrelevant to the play?
3. Write a few sentences about how each of the moments you picked out for the second
question worked.
4. Works consulted
4. We consulted these works while writing the original version of this handout. This is not a
comprehensive list of resources on the handout's topic, and we encourage you to do your
own research to find the latest publications on this topic. Please do not use this list as a
model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you
are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation
tutorial.
5. Worthen, W.B. The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama. New York: Heinle & Heinle, 1999.
6. Carter, Paul. The Backstage Handbook: An Illustrated Almanac of Technical Information,
3rd Ed. Shelter Island, New York: Broadway Press, 1994.
7. UNC Libraries Comprehensive Guide to Resources for the Study of Drama and Theater.
1. Ian Johnston, " Dramatic Structure : Comedy and Tragedy"
Dramatic Structure: Comedy and Tragedy. Shakespeare's plays are all about one great general
theme: disorder. This may sound like a profound statement, but, ...
www.siue.edu/.../eng208NotesOnComedyAndTragedy.htm - Cached
[The following has been excerpted from Ian Johnston's introductory lecture to his English 366:
Studies in Shakespeare course at Malaspina University College in British Columbia; it is the best
introductory discussion I have ever read on the subject of dramatic comedy and tragedy, and it is
especially useful as an introduction to the major themes of King Lear. The full version of this
lecture can be accessed here.]
Dramatic Structure: Comedy and Tragedy
Shakespeare's plays are all about one great general theme: disorder. This
may sound like a profound statement, but, as we shall see in a moment, it
applies equally well to almost all drama. Still, the point is worth
stressing, for reasons we shall attend to in a moment, because the major
entry into every play we read is going to be an attempt to answer some
key questions associated with that notion of disorder: What is the order in
this society? How is that order violated? How do the characters respond
to the loss of traditional order? How is order restored? Is the new order at
11

12. the end of the play something healthy or is it shot through with ironic
resonance?
All dramatic stories always involve conflict. Typically, the dramatic
narrative will open with some sense of a normal society: we see people of
all kinds going about their business, and in witnessing this initial state of
affairs we quickly ascertain the various ranks of people, the bonds which
hold them together, and something about their value system. In other
words, we begin with a society which is held together by shared rules.
Many of Shakespeare's plays begin with a large group scene (the king and
his court, for example) in which everyone has a place and knows his or
her place. The scene is offered to us as a symbol of social unity which is
about to be broken and will not be restored until the closing scenes (e.g.,
King Lear, Macbeth, Richard II).
Then, something unusual and often unexpected happens to upset that
normality. The event may be something natural, like a ship wreck (as in
Twelfth Night or The Tempest), supernatural (as in Macbeth and Hamlet),
a decision made by a particular character (as in King Lear or As You Like
It) or a sudden quarrel (e.g., As You Like It, Henry IV, Part 1). Often this
event which kick starts the action is given very quickly with no attempt to
provide a detailed explanation for it or even, in some cases, instantly
plausible motivation (e.g., Cordelia's refusal to answer Lear, Oliver's
decision to seek Orlando's death). At all events, this upset (which
typically occurs very early in the action) disturbs the normal situation,
creates confusion and conflict. Such conflict may be the source of much
humour (for example, in the various mistaken identities which occur
when a set of twins or, as in Comedy of Errors, two sets of twins,
unexpectedly get loose in the community), or it may be the source of
much political, personal, and psychological torment. Attempts to
understand what is going on or to deal with it simply compound the
conflict, accelerating it and intensifying it. Finally, the conflict is
resolved.
The terms comedy and tragedy commonly refer to the ways in which
dramatic conflicts are resolved. In comedy, the confusion ends when
everyone recognizes what has been going on, learns from it, forgives,
forgets, and re-establishes his or her identity in the smoothly functioning
social group (which may return to the original normality or may be
setting up a better situation than the one the group started with).
Comedies typically end with a group celebration, especially one
associated with a betrothal or wedding, often accompanied by music and
dancing The emphasis is on the reintegration of everyone into the group,
a recommitment to their shared life together. If there has been a clearly
disruptive presence in the action, a source of anti-social discord, then that
person typically has reformed his ways, has been punished, or is banished
from the celebration. Thus, the comic celebration is looking forward to a
more meaningful communal life (hence the common ending for
comedies: "And they lived happily ever after").
The ending of a tragedy is quite different. Here the conflict is resolved
only with the death of the main character, who usually discovers just
before his death that his attempts to control the conflict and make his way
through it have simply compounded his difficulties and that, therefore, to
a large extent the dire situation he is in is largely of his own making. The
death of the hero is not normally the very last thing in a tragedy,
however, for there is commonly (especially in classical Greek tragedy)
some group lament over the body of the fallen hero, a reflection upon the
significance of the life which has now ended. Some of Shakespeare's best
known speeches are these laments. The final action of a tragedy is then
the carrying out of the corpse. The social group has formed again, but
only as a result of the sacrifice of the main character(s), and the emphasis
12

13. in the group is in a much lower key, as they ponder the significance of the
life of the dead hero (in that sense, the ending of a tragedy is looking
back over what has happened; the ending of comedy is looking forward
to a joyful future).
This apparently simple structural difference between comedy and tragedy
means that, with some quick rewriting, a tragic structure can be modified
into a comic one. If we forget about violating the entire vision in the
work (more about this later), we can see how easily a painful tragic
ending can be converted into a reassuring comic conclusion.. If Juliet
wakes up in time, she and Romeo can live happily ever after. If Cordelia
survives, then Lear's heart will not break; she can marry Edgar, and all
three of them can live prosperously and happily for years to come. And
so on. Such changes to the endings of Shakespeare's tragedies were
commonplace in eighteenth-century productions, at a time when the
tragic vision of experience was considered far less acceptable and popular
by the general public.
Comedy and Tragedy as Visions of Experience
But the terms tragedy and comedy refer to more than simply the structure
of a narrative (especially the ending). The terms also commonly refer to
visions of experience (which those structures present). And this matter is
considerably more complex than simply the matter of the final plot twist.
Of the two, the comic vision is easier to explain, since, as we shall see, it
corresponds to the way most of us think (or like to think) about life.
Stated most simply, the comic vision celebrates the individual's
participation in a community as the most important part of life. When the
normal community is upset, the main characters in a comedy will
normally have the initial urge to seek to restore that normality, to get
back what they have lost. Initially, they will be unsuccessful, and they
will have to adapt to unfamiliar changes (funny or otherwise). But in a
comedy the main characters will have the ability to adjust, to learn, to
come up with the resources necessary to meet the challenges they face.
They may also have a great deal of luck. But one way and another, they
persevere and the conflict is resolved happily with the reintegration of the
characters into a shared community. Often an important point in the
comedy is the way in which the main characters have to learn some
important things about life (especially about themselves) before being
able to resolve the conflict (this is particular true of the men in
Shakespeare's comedies).
This form of story, it will be clear, is an endorsement of the value in the
communal life we share together and of the importance of adjusting our
individual demands on life to suit community demands. In a sense, the
comic confusion will often force the individual to encounter things he or
she has taken for granted, and dealing with these may well test many
different resources (above all faith, flexibility, perseverance, and trust in
other people). But through a final acknowledgment (earned or learned) of
the importance of human interrelationships, a social harmony will be
restored (commonly symbolized by a new betrothal, a reconciliation
between parents, a family reunion, and so on), and a group celebration
(feast, dance, procession) will endorse that new harmony.
Tragedy, by contrast, explores something much more complex: the
individual's sense of his own desire to confront the world on his own
terms, to get the world to answer to his conceptions of himself, if
necessary at the expense of customary social bonds and even of his own
life. The tragic hero characteristically sets out to deal with a conflict by
himself or at least entirely on his own terms, and as things start to get
more complicated, generally the tragic figure will simply redouble his
13

14. efforts, increasingly persuaded that he can deal with what is happening
only on his own. In that sense, tragic heroes are passionately egocentric
and unwilling to compromise their powerful sense of their own identity in
the face of unwelcome facts. They will not let themselves answer to any
communal system of value; they answer only to themselves. Lear would
sooner face the storm on the heath than compromise his sense of being
horribly wronged by his daughters; Macbeth wills himself to more
killings as the only means to resolve the psychological torment he feels;
Othello sets himself up as the sole judge and executioner of Desdemona.
Tragic heroes always lose because the demands they make on life are
excessive. Setting themselves up as the only authority for their actions
and refusing to compromise or learn (except too late), they inevitably
help to create a situation where there is no way out other than to see the
action through to its increasingly grim conclusion. Hence, for most of us
tragic heroes are often not particularly sympathetic characters (not at least
in the way that comic protagonists are). There is something passionately
uncompromising about their obsessive egoism which will only accept life
on their own terms--in a sense they are radically unsociable beings
(although they may occupy, and in Shakespeare almost always do
occupy, important social positions).
The intriguing question is the following: Why would anyone respond to
life this way? That question is very difficult to answer. The tragic
response to life is not a rationally worked out position. For any rational
person, the comic response to life, which requires compromise in the
name of personal survival in the human community (or which sees the
whole question of personal identity in social terms), makes much more
sense. What does seem clear is that the tragic response to life emerges in
some people from a deeply irrational but invincible conviction about
themselves. Their sense of what they are, their integrity, is what they
must answer to, and nothing the world presents is going to dissuade them
from attending to this personal sense of worth. Hence, tragedy is, in a
sense, a celebration (if that is the right word) of the most extreme forms
of heroic individualism. That may help to explain the common saying
"Comedy is for those who think, tragedy for those who feel."
One way of clarifying this is to think how we construct for ourselves a
sense of who we are, of our identity. Most of us do that in terms of social
relationships and social activities. In traditional societies, one's identity is
often very closely bound up with a particular family in a specific place.
We define ourselves to ourselves and to others as sons, daughters,
husbands, wives, members of an academic community or a social or
religious group, or participants in a social activity, and so on. In that
sense we define ourselves comically (not in a funny way but in terms of a
social matrix). The tragic hero is not willing or able to do this (although
he or she might not be aware of that inability at first). The tragic
personality wants to answer only to himself, and thus his sense of his own
identity is not determined by others (they must answer to his conception
of himself). Given that his passions are huge and egocentric and
uncompromising, the establishment of an identity inevitably brings him
into collision with the elemental forces of life, which he must then face
alone (because to acknowledge any help would be a compromise with his
sense of who he is).
We might also ask why we bother paying such attention to a tragic
character. What is there about the tragic response which commands our
imaginative respect? After all, many of these characters strike us as very
naive and full of their own self-importance (in some ways, perhaps, quite
childish), not the sort of people one would like to have as next door
neighbours or dinner companions. Incapable of adapting to unexpected
changes in life, they often seem so rigid as to defy credibility and
14

15. curiously blind (a key metaphor in many tragedies). Characteristically,
they don't listen to others, but rather insist that people listen to and agree
with them (the pronouns I and me are very frequent in their public
utterances--Lear is one of the supreme examples of this tendency).
Why are these people worthy of our attention? We shall have much to
explore on this question in dealing with Macbeth and Lear, but for the
moment we might observe that we don't have to like these people
particularly in order for them to command our attention. What matters is
their willingness to suffer in the service of their own vision of
themselves. They have set an emotional logic to their lives, and they are
going to see it through, no matter how powerfully their originally high
hopes are deceived. They are also, in a sense that we can imaginatively
understand, although rarely if ever attain in our own lives, truly free,
since they acknowledge no authority other than themselves. Macbeth is a
mass murderer (of women and children, among others); no one watching
the play will have any sympathy for his bloody actions. And yet as he
faces and deals with the grim realities closing in on him, his astonishing
clear sightedness, courage, and willingness to endure whatever life loads
on him command our respect and attention. The same hold true for Lear,
in many ways a foolish father and king and an inflexibly egocentric man,
whose sufferings and whose willingness to suffer inspire awe.
Characters in plays, as in life, do not decide to be tragic or comic heroes.
What they are emerges as they respond to the unexpected conflict which
the opening of the drama initiates. Their response to the dislocation of
normality will determine which form their story will take. To the comic
hero, undertaking what is necessary for the restoration of normality is
important, and that may well require serious adjustments to one's opinion
of oneself, an ability to adopt all sorts of ruses and humiliations (disguise,
deceptions, pratfalls, beatings, and so on), a faith in others, and some
compromise in the acknowledgment of others. Comic heroes and
heroines learn to listen to others and respond appropriately. The tragic
hero, by contrast, takes the responsibility fully on himself. In his own
mind, he is the only one who knows what needs to be done, and if
circumstances indicate that he may be wrong, he is incapable of
acknowledging that until it's too late. His sense of himself is too powerful
to admit of change. Tragic heroes do not listen to others, only to
themselves (or to others who tell them what they want to hear). People
who tell them they are acting foolishly are simply part of the problem.
Tragic heroes and heroines, in other words, do not answer to community
morality; they do not accept the conventional vision of things which
reassures most of us by providing a group sense of what is most
important in life. For that reason (as I shall mention in a moment) the
tragic vision is potentially very disturbing, because we are dealing with a
character who is not satisfied with traditional group explanations, with
the socially reassuring rules and habits, and whose life therefore tears
aside momentarily the comforting illusions which serve to justify life to
us as a meaningful moral experience.
For that reason inquiring into the motivations of tragic characters is often
difficult. Why do they behave the way they do? Why can't they just be
reasonable and act normally? Why doesn't Lear take up his daughters'
offer? Why doesn't Othello just ask Desdemona about her "affair" with
Cassio? Why does Macbeth kill Duncan? Often we seek simple rational
moralistic explanations: Lear is too proud, Othello is too angry, Macbeth
is too ambitious. Such simplistic answers (which cater more to our desire
for a reassuring reason than to the complex details of the play) are an
attempt to cope with the unease which the tragic character can generate.
15

16. The critic Murray Krieger has suggested that the comic and tragic visions
of experience correspond to the two things we all like to think about
ourselves and our lives. Comedy celebrates our desire for and faith in
community and the security and permanence that community ensures (if
not for us, then for our families). To become cooperating members of the
community most of us spend a lot of time educating ourselves,
compromising some of the things we would most like in life, and
rebounding from disappointments and set backs with a renewed sense of
hope (and perhaps some new ways of dealing with things). Tragedy, by
contrast, celebrates our desire for individual integrity, for a sense that
there are some things which we are not prepared to compromise, even if
asserting our individuality fully brings great (even fatal) risks. The tragic
hero has this sense to an excessive degree, just as many comic heroes
display an astonishing flexibility, adaptability, and willingness to learn
and change.
An alternative formulation of this difference (prompted by the writings of
Stanley Cavell) might be to characterize it as arising from two different
ways of approaching the world we encounter: acceptance or avoidance.
The first way accepts the world (including the various explanations of it
offered by our culture) and seek to be accepted by it. This response
clearly requires us to place ourselves and our thinking within a
community (even our challenges to accepted ways of thinking will be
directed by how the community allows for such disagreements) and,
equally, to limit the demands we make on understanding the world
(keeping such demands within conventional boundaries).
The second way (avoidance) is, in some fundamental way, suspicious of,
unhappy about, afraid or contemptuous of acceptance, since that means
answering to other people, letting them take full measure of us, and
limiting our understanding of the world to what is available to us from
our surrounding community. This response prompts the individual to
powerful self-assertion in a rejection of any compromise in the direction
of common social interaction. Hence, this method of encountering the
world leads to isolation, suffering, and eventually self-destruction (since
the reality of the world can never be known by nor will ever answer to
one person's imagination).
Since one of the most common ways of representing acceptance of the
world is human love, that experience is a prominent feature of plays
which endorse such acceptance (i.e., comedies). For the same reason, it is
a marked feature of much Shakespearean tragedy (starting with Richard
III) that the hero suffers from an inability to love or else loses that
capacity.
This last point introduces a gender differentiation which is important in
Shakespeare (and elsewhere) and raises some important questions about
contrasting male and female principles, the former associated with the
origins of tragedy in some dissatisfaction with the given world and the
latter associated with an acceptance of that world. I don't propose to
pursue that here, but as you read these plays you will see that
characteristically Shakespeare associates the drive to impose order
(political or personal) on the world with men and measures the nature of
this drive often by the way in which it affects (or arises out of) their
ability or, rather, inability to love.
For those interested in psychoanalytic origins of behaviour, this
distinction, too, offers potential insight. If the fundamental experience of
life in men is a separation from and a desire to repossess the mother
(Freud's Oedipal conflict) then we can see in these plays a clear
distinction between those who have overcome this separation and
integrated themselves into the community happily and those whose life is
16

17. characterized by a continuing sense of separation from what they sense
they most fully need on their own terms. I offer this here as a fertile
suggestion which we may take up later on.
By way of clarifying the distinction between the comic and tragic visions
further, we might consider the different emotional effects. While the
ending of a comedy is typically celebratory, there is always a sense of
limitation underneath the joy (how strong that sense is will determine just
how ironic the ending of the comedy might be). The human beings have
settled for the joys which are possible and are not going to push their
demands on life beyond the barriers established by social convention.
Hence, comedy, in a sense, always involves a turning away from the most
challenging human possibilities. Tragedy, on the other hand, although
generally gory and sad in its conclusion, also affirms something: the
ability of human beings to dare great things, to push the human spirit to
the limit no matter what the consequences. Hence, beneath the sorrowful
lament for the dead hero, there often will be a sense of wonder at this
manifestation of the greatness of this individual spirit.
This sense of potential sadness or limitation in the conclusion of a
comedy may help to account for one of the most intriguing figures in our
cultural traditions, the clown with the broken heart, the sad clown, the
professional funny man who brings laughter to others because, although
he knows that the social order he is serving may be an illusion, it's all
there is between us and the overwhelming and destructive mystery of life.
The tradition of the sadly wise professional funny man stems from this
awareness: settling for the joys that are possible (like shared laughter) is a
way of screening from us the tragic suffering at the heart of life. We see
this in at least two of Shakespeare's most famous clowns: Feste in
Twelfth Night and the Fool in King Lear. We also see it, incidentally, in
the sad lives of many other famous clowns, fictional and otherwise
(Pagliacci, Rigoletto, Tony Hancock).
The comic vision of experience is common to many cultures. Our
traditions of comic drama originated with the ancient Greeks, but the
form never really had to be reinvented or passed down, because it is a
vital element in most dramatic rituals which communities routinely
celebrate on important occasions (in harvest pageants, celebrations of
spring, and so on). Any pagan culture based upon the cycles of nature
which turns to some form of ritualized drama, usually as part of the
celebrations associated with an agricultural or hunting festival, will
almost certainly produce some form of comedy.
Tragic drama, by contrast, has a very different history. The ancient
Greeks developed the vision and the style in a way unheard of in other
ancient cultures. And its unique presence there is a tribute to the way this
culture originated a preoccupation with the lives of heroic individuals,
whose very greatness brings upon them unimaginable suffering and an
early death, something very strong in our Western traditions. The Greek
tradition of tragic drama was not available to Shakespeare; he knew some
of the stories from various sources other than the Greek originals, but had
no direct experience of what tragedy really meant to the Greeks. Hence,
he had no inherited sense of the full potential of the tragic vision in
drama.
Drama Theory
The two primary characters in any drama are called Protagonist and Antagonist. Let's
construct a simple model of them. Each character in a drama has a ...
web.media.mit.edu/~bkort/Drama.html - Cached - Similar
17

18. Drama Theory
A story is an anecdote drawn from the culture. A well-crafted anecdote or story has value both as
an amusement and as a source of insight into the world from which it is drawn. Since the plural
of 'anecdote' is data, if you gather a large enough collection of anecdotal stories you ought to
have a data base sufficient to model the culture from which the stories are drawn.
But first we need a functional model of StoryCraft. Before we can outline the plot structure of
our story, we need to define the Characters who will play out our nasty little drama. The two
primary characters in any drama are called Protagonist and Antagonist. Let's construct a simple
model of them. Each character in a drama has a characteristic psychological profile. We propose
modeling this profile in terms of eight basic psychological parameters: Fears, Emotions,
Backstory, Issues, Beliefs, Practices, Desires, and Intentions, which drive the character's
Actions/Reactions and Dramatic Life Story. This model concords with both Jungian analysis and
existing models of Characterization in Drama Theory.
So, to elaborate, we have this Shreklisch Onion Layer Character Model, from the inside out:
1. Innermost Fears (Amygdala and Hippocampus)
2. Burbling Emotions (Limbic System)
3. Undisclosed Backstory (Long-Term Memory)
4. Burning Issues (Identify Fiend or Foof)
5. Sacred Beliefs (Neocortex)
6. Derivative Practices (Cerebellum)
7. Heart's Desires (HeartMind)
8. Avowed Intentions (Throat)
9. Foolish Actions & Reactions (Muscles)
10. Dreadful Drama (Shreklisch Life Story)
The Innermost Fears are the most fundamental (and deeply hidden) elements of the character's
psychology. Swirling around the Innermost Fears are other Burbling Emotions which are
generally acted out, but not necessarily mentioned by name. The character's Undisclosed
Backstory establishes the basis for their dreads and associated unresolved problems. The
Undisclosed Backstory explains the unresolved Burning Issues from the character's past. The
Sacred Beliefs are the first important cognitive component of the character's psychology. Beliefs
can be accurate or inaccurate as well as riddled with gaps. Associated with Beliefs are Derivative
Practices, which correspond to the way the character handles (or fails to handle) recurring
situations. Through the lens of the character's Belief System, he envisions his or her Heart's
Desires. The Desires are the nominal inverse of the Fears and Dreads. The character believes that
the object of desire will protect him from his dreads and alleviate his suffering. Among all his
Heart's Desires, he undertakes to achieve at least one of them, and that becomes his Avowed
Intention, his Holy Grail. That pursuit is the Opening Act of the unfolding Shreklisch Drama.
In order for the drama to get off the ground, the Protagonist and Antagonist must have
Complementary Psychologies. The Desires and Intentions of the Protagonist must arouse the
Fears of the Antagonist, and vice versa. This sets up the primary feedback loop that propels the
conflict and the drama. To run a drama to Tragedy, it suffices that the characters consume their
resources without resolving their conflict. Of all tragedies, perhaps the most complex are the
Greek Tragedies which we may call Agonistic Drama. To run the drama to Comedy, something
astonishing must happen. The characters must solve the Mystery of their long-suffering Agony
and discover the system model we just presented. And, of course, so must the audience.
The central theorem of Drama Theory is called Clancy's Theorem, after one of Tom Clancy's
book titles. But it's also inspired by one of Shakespeare's titles as well — Much Ado About
Nothing.
18

19. Drama - Character and characterization : How do different characters interact with
each other, to produce dramatic relationships? ...
Introduction
Character and characterization
· Who are the central characters in the play? How do you know this?
· How do different characters interact with each other, to produce dramatic relationships?
· Characterization refers to the ways in which the author and the actors establish character,
through particular features of dialogue, action, gesture (manual, facial or both) and so on. How
was this done in the play you saw, for the principal characters?
· Are there any characters with whom the audience especially identifies, or with whom you
identify? Why is this?
· Are there any characters whose viewpoint or beliefs seem to be those of the playwright, or more
persuasive to the audience than others' views?
Dramatic action
· Comment on whether things are directly shown in live action, or narrated or recalled by
characters in the play.
· Does the playwright relate past events to the present?
· Look in the stage directions for examples of physical actions (they may seem trivial or small) and
show how they help move the story on.
· How does the author use exits and entrances to bring particular characters together? Comment
on any examples of this which you can find.
Dramatic devices
· In general, these can be found by looking at stage directions. Comment on any such directions
which help explain how the play should be presented.
· Does the script contain any indication about setting or scenery?
· The most obvious feature of drama is perhaps the dialogue (speech) - comment on any
passages that help the audience understand action or characters better.
· Comment on the use of any props in the play. These are "stage properties" - objects used in the
action like the mirror in Richard II or Eddie Carbone's newspaper in Arthur Miller's A View from
the Bridge. Do the props help move the story on or reveal character or themes?
Dramatic structures
· Explain how the divisions of the play (into acts and scenes, for example) show the structure and
plotting of the dramatic narrative.
· How does the author present time in the play?
· Does the structure of the play help show its themes or meaning?
The play in performance
To show your understanding of how the play should be a performance (not a book to read in
class), explain and describe how it was performed in the version(s) you saw and how you would
present it for a given medium (stage, film, television or radio). You may do this for the play
generally or for specific episodes. Comment on costume, props, the set, lighting, music, sound
FX, casting, direction and anything else you think interesting or relevant.
Overview and close-up
You cannot possibly write in great detail about everything in this play. Life (yours and your
teachers') is too short. Try to balance general comment about the whole of the play, its broad
themes, characters and relationships, with detailed and specific explanations of short episodes.
Making a judgement
Finally, you should make a judgement of the play, whether and in what ways it was good drama.
Why, in your view, did the playwright write this play? Give your opinion of the play - what you
like or dislike about it. Try to be positive and to relate your comments closely to the detail of the
play.
19

20. Presenting your work
Theatre is a practical art - your work should recognize this. You may want to include
illustrations, sketches, diagrams and plans, to show your ideas about the set, costume, lighting
and so on. And remember, it's a play. Refer to the audience not the reader. Do not refer to the
book but to the play, performance or production. Set out quotations conventionally, using
quotation marks.
A few definitions of Rhetoric
Kenneth Burke: "Rhetoric is rooted in an essential function of language itself, a ... ...that
sea of communicative transactionsÉthe impersonal drama of what ...
Some Definitions of Rhetoric
Plato: Rhetoric is "the art of winning the soul by discourse."
Aristotle: Rhetoric is "the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available
means of persuasion.
Cicero: "Rhetoric is one great art comprised of five lesser arts: inventio, dispositio,
elocutio, memoria, and pronunciatio." Rhetoric is "speech designed to
persuade."
Quintillian: "Rhetoric is the art of speaking well."
Francis Bacon: Rhetoric is the application of reason to imagination "for the better
moving of the will."
George Campbell: [Rhetoric] is that art or talent by which discourse is adapted to its
end. The four ends of discourse are to enlighten the understanding, please
the imagination, move the passion, and influence the will.
A. Richards: Rhetoric is the study of misunderstandings and their remedies.
Kenneth Burke: "Rhetoric is rooted in an essential function of language itself, a
function that is wholly realistic and continually born anew: the use of
language as a symbolic means of indjcing cooperation in beings
that by nature respond to symbols."
"Wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric, and wherever there is
rhetoric, there is meaning."
Richard Weaver: Rhetoric is that "which creates an informed appetition for the good."
Erika Lindemann: "Rhetoric is a form of reasoning about probabilities, based on
Assumptions people share as members of a commununity."
Andrea Lunsford: "Rhetoric is the art, practice, and study of human communication."
Francis Christensen: "Grammar maps out the possible; rhetoric narrows the possible
down to the desirable or effective." "The key question for rhetoric is how
to know what is desirable."
Sonja and Karen Foss: "Rhetoric is an action human beings perform when they use
symbols for the purpose of communicating with one another . . , [and
it] is a perspective humans take that involves focusing on symbolic
processes."
1. Boethius: Confessions (Howell's translation)
20

21. Rhetoric treats of and discourses upon hypotheses, that is, questions with a multitude of
surroundings in time and place, and if at any time it brings up a thesis, it uses it in connection
with its hyposthesis. These are its surroundings: Who? What? Where? By whose help? Why? In
what manner? At what time?
2. James J. Murphy: "One Thousand Neglected Authors"
A rhetorician is someone who provides his fellows with useful precepts or directions for
organizing and presenting his ideas or feeling to them. (20)
3. Marc Fumaroli: "Rhetoric, Politics and Society"
Rhetoric appears as the connective tissue peculiar to civil society and to its proper finalities,
happiness and political peace hic et nunc. (253-4)
4. Kenneth Burke: A Rhetoric of Motives
The most characteristic concern of rhetoric [is] the manipulation of men's beliefs for political
ends....the basic function of rhetoric [is] the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to
induce actions in other human agents. (41)
5. Covino and Joliffe: Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions, Boundaries (1995)
Rhetoric is primarily a verbal, situationally contingent, epistemic art that is both philosophical
and practical and gives rise to potentially active texts.
6. Paolo Valesio: Novantiqua (1980)
I specify now that rhetoric is the functional organization of discourse, within its social and
cultural context, in all its aspects, exception made for its realization as a strictly formal
metalanguage--in formal logic, mathematics, and in the sciences whose metalanguages share the
same features. In other words: rhetoric is all of language, in its realization as discourse.
7. George Kennedy: "A Hoot in the Dark" (1992)
Rhetoric in the most general sense may perhaps be identified with the energy inherent in
communication: the emotional energy that impels the speaker to speak, the physical energy
expanded in the utterance, the energy level coded in the message, and the energy experienced by
the recipient in decoding the message.
8. Francis Bacon (1561-1626): Advancement of Learning
The duty and office of rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the
will.
9. Bender and Wellbery:
...that sea of communicative transactions…the impersonal drama of what occurs among us,
unnoticed and without deliberation or grandeur…the dense tangle of our triviality.
10. Lloyd Bitzer: "The Rhetorical Situation" (1968)
In short, rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects,
but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and
action.
11. Edward T. Channing: Lectures Read to the Seniors at Harvard College (c. 1856)
[Rhetoric is] a body of rules derived from experience and observation, extending to all
communication by language and designed to make it efficient. It does not ask whether a man is
to be a speaker or writer, --a poet, philosopher, or debater; but simply,--is it his wish to be put in
the right way of communicating his mind with power to others, by words spoken or written. If
so, rhetoric undertakes to show him rules or principles which will help to make the expression of
his thoughts effective.
12. Douglas Ehninger (1972):
[Rhetoric is] that discipline which studies all of the ways in which men may influence each
other's thinking and behavior through the strategic use of symbols.
13. Gerard A. Hauser: Introduction to Rhetorical Theory (1986)
Rhetoric is an instrumental use of language…. One person engages another person in an
exchange of symbols to accomplish some goal. It is not communication for communication's
21

22. sake. Rhetoric is communication that attempts to coordinate social action. For this reason,
rhetorical communication is explicitly pragmatic. Its goal is to influence human choices on
specific matters that require immediate attention.
14. C. H. Knoblauch: "Modern Rhetorical Theory and Its Future Directions" (1985)
...rhetoric is the process of using language to organize experience and communicate it to others.
It is also the study of how people use language to organize and communicate experience. The
word denotes…both distinctive human activity and the "science" concerned with understanding
that activity.
15. John Locke: Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
[Rhetoric,] that powerful instrument of error and deceit.
16. McCloskey:
...merely speech with designs on the reade
Interpreting Drama /Prabhanjan Mane
Contents: Acknowledgements. Foreword. 1. Introduction. 2. Defining a
play. 3. Dramatic structure. 4. Characters. 5. Language and rhetoric. 6.
Further dimensions and devices. 7. Interpreting the play. 8. Evaluation and
criticism. 9. Presenting an analysis. Glossary. Further reading.
"Interpreting Drama is a multifaceted study of drama as a form and is
meant primarily for students of English at the university level. It addresses
issues of cardinal significance to the Indian academia and furnishes us with
elaborate analyses of various concepts of character and techniques of
characterization.
The book highlights the features of drama as a genre. It confines the
illustrations to plays normally taught in the institutions in India. In some
ways, this limits the range of intended readership but on the other hand, it
caters in a more concrete manner to a specific audience with a local
habitation and a name. The students will find reading this book an
enjoyable, stimulating and enriching experience, and feel inspired to pursue
"gems of purest ray serene" in the inexhaustible treasure house of drama.
The ideas and analyses have been presented in a simple language and lucid
manner for easy understanding by the readers. It will prove useful to the
teachers and researchers of English literature, particularly drama." (jacket)
interpretation of the play
Writing About Drama: Terms and Conventions
As in all critical writing, the most important thing to remember is to keep your analysis specific
and textual. As a rule of thumb, offer five lines of analysis for every line of drama that you
quote. Develop a thesis that allows you to approach the assignment as an investigation, not only
into the world of the play, but into the way that world is constructed and presented. Your thesis
will make a claim about your interpretation of the play that you will then prove through textual
evidence. In the case of Shakespearean drama, you are responsible for an accurate
interpretation of that text — rely on glossaries and the Oxford English Dictionary to be sure
that what you are interpreting is actually what is in the text.
Learn the difference between opinion and analysis. Your likes and dislikes are important to
your critical approach, but should be implied by your analysis, not expressly stated. Similarly,
try not to “analyze” the obvious — don’t spend time “proving” that Iago is evil, that Katherine is
22

23. a shrew, that Hamlet is tormented, that King Lear is old and weak. Look for controversy,
inconsistency, words that can be interpreted in more than one way.
Analyzing drama asks much the same skill as analyzing prose fiction; however, you must
provide an additional awareness that drama, unlike prose, is meant to be performed (or, if read
in text form, to be imagined as it would be performed). Thus you are not only interested in
language, but also in action, in the staging or any special theatrical effects called for by the play,
and in the sense of elapsed time called for by the plot. In drama, there is also a heightened
awareness of conflict — drama intensifies the clash between people and other people, between
people and their culture, between people and fate or circumstance, between people and values,
between men and women, between the elderly and the young, between the powerful and the
oppressed, between, essentially, good and evil. Is the conflict you are witnessing balanced or
one-sided? Is its outcome in doubt or inevitable? Is it the same conflict throughout the play or
does it change? Is there more than one source of conflict? Is the source of conflict a symbol or
metaphor for a broader problem or controversy (i.e., does an argument between a man and
woman reflect larger issues of power and self-determination, and if so, how does the playwright
indicate this?)
All of the following may be used as part of your overall analysis:
Character Analysis:
• As in prose fiction, consider the following when trying to understand a character: Age, Sex,
Race, Social Class, Profession, Financial stability, Family Structure, Love/Marriage
Relationships, Physical/Emotional health
• Is the character happy or unhappy with his/her place in this list of identifying qualities?
• Do any of these change in the course of the play, and how does the character deal with the
change?
• Is there any discrepancy between what a character says and what s/he does?
• Is there any discrepancy between what other people say about a character and what s/he says
or does?
Language:
• Do all characters speak in language appropriate to their sex/age/social class, etc.? If not,
why not?
• Is the dialogue written in prose or verse, or a combination of the two?
• Is the prose dialogue realistic, poetic and stylized, or somewhere in between?
• Does the playwright incorporate figures of speech or poetic devices into the characters’
speeches? What do such things tell us about character?
• Do any characters speak in asides, and what is revealed in these speeches?
Plot Analysis:
• Identify the rising action, the climax, the resolution and the denouement. Do they occur in
expected or unexpected places?
• Does the plot follow the Aristotelian “Unities” (see handout on Dramatic Theory and
Terms)? Why or why not?
• Is there a pattern of reoccurrence of any events?
• Are the events in the plot realistic or fantastical, or a combination of both?
23

24. • Is each event prepared for or motivated by the characters/other events, or do some things
seem to happen because of random chance?
• Are there any subplots? What is their relationship to the main plot? Is this relationship
evident from the start, or revealed as the play progresses?
Setting:
• Is the play set in a “real” or an imaginary place?
• Is there more than one setting (the Aristotelian Unities again)?
• Do the characters belong in the place(s) they’re in, or are they misplaced/displaced?
• Does the setting contribute to conflict, or diffuse it?
Metadrama:
• At any point in the play, are the characters or the audience reminded that they’re in/seeing a
play?
• Are there any references to the “world as a stage,” or do any characters put on a play or
speak directly to the audience?
• What is the effect of such references?
• Do they change or intensify the mood or tone of the play?
• Are any of the important conflicts in the play exacerbated or resolved at the moment of such
theatrical self-reference?
Technicalities:
While it is true that drama unfolds in the context of time, your analysis need not be chronological
in structure (unless you are explicitly analyzing plot). Most important: unless the assignment
specifically asks you to, NEVER summarize the plot of a play — it’s too easy to do this instead
of analyzing.
Be specific not only about what characters are doing but about how they are behaving while
they're doing it. One quick way to indicate this to your reader is through active verbs. Seek out
your "says'es" and "Is'es" and "have's" and try a more specific term, such as: (for "says")
suggests, protests, insinuates, pleads, moans, proclaims; (for "has") clings to, obsesses over,
possesses, steals, suffers from; . . . and so on. Always annotate quotes by listing, in a parenthesis
at the end of the sentence in which the quote appears, the numbers of the act, scene, and line(s)
the quote is from: (Hamlet III. ii. 12-15). Inclusion of the title is only necessary if you haven't
already given an internal reference in the body of your essay.
Be sure to use dramatic terms accurately; refer to the following guide for definitions:
Dramatic Theory and Conventions
I. THEORY -- Idealized rules based on classical writers; some playwrights honored them
(Jonson, Dryden) while others didn't (Marlowe, Shakespeare):
A. The Unities (developed from Aristotle's Poetics by 16th century critics)
1. TIME (action on stage should occur within 2-1/2 hours)
2. PLACE (same locale/setting for entire play)
24

25. 3. ACTION (all events should describe a single plot line — this was the
only rule Aristotle actually spelled out)
B. Probability -- Aristotle recommends that the action proceed rationally, with no events
unprepared for.
C. Decorum -- Characters should speak, dress, and behave in a manner suitable to their
rank, sex, age, personality; also, style/expression should fit the genre or subject.
D. Verisimilitude -- Events must be true, believeable, and more or less realistic.
E. Five-Part Structure:
1. EXPOSITION -- presents the situation and events leading up to the action; introduces
characters and defines their relationships
2. RISING ACTION -- complicates the original situation, creating conflict among the
characters
3. CLIMAX/TURNING POINT -- change in direction of the course of events,
particularly for the protagonist
4. FALLING ACTION -- resolving of complications
5. CONCLUSION/CATASTROPHE -- final revelation or outcome (such as discovered
identities in comedy or death in tragedy), resulting in "restored order" ("dénouement" often refers
to falling action and conclusion together)
II. DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS
A. Chorus -- group of actors who speak in unison (later replaced by a single actor)
functioning as an expository device
B. Confidant(e) -- Character whose main function is to carry information to and from the
main character and to provide the excuse for a character to speak thoughts aloud.
C. Soliloquy -- When a character reveals inmost thoughts directly to the audience. Reveals
the speaker's perceptions, not necessarily the "truth." Conventionally, the speaker doesn't reveal
an awareness of the audience's presence, although sometimes awareness is shown for comic
effect.
D. Aside -- During a scene, when a character suddenly turns to another character or to an
audience and speaks a line heard only by the audience and addressee. Convention requires the
other characters to reveal no knowledge that the first character is speaking.
E. Metadrama -- Some playwrights have their characters either refer directly to the
presence of the audience or other parts of the theater in the course of their speeches, or else use
specifically theatrical figures of speech (i.e., Shakespeare has a character in As You Like It begin
a speech, "All the world's a stage,/ And all the men and women merely players./They have their
exits and their entrances,/And one man in his time plays many parts . . .). Such references are
usually included for comic or ironic effect, but can also be used in tragedy to enhance the play's
critical commentary on politics, society, philosophy, etc. Metadrama also refers to the inclusion
of a play-within-a-play, as in Hamlet.
TYPES OF COMEDY
Comedy in Shakespeare’s time tended to fall into several categories, requiring varied levels of
sophistication on the part of the listener for fullest enjoyment:
Burlesque — purely physical comedy: potty and sexual jokes, pratfalls, foodfights,
drinking/drug jokes, drag costumes. This level of comedy requires almost no prior
knowledge — references are to the most basic kinds of human experience.
25

26. Farce — plot-oriented comedy (similar to situation comedy today): disguise/mistaken identity,
eavesdropping (intentional or unintentional), coincidences and accidents, get-rich-quick
schemes that backfire, etc. Familiarity with the formulas and conventions of plot increase
enjoyment.
Romantic comedy — boy-get-girl/boy-loses-girl/boy-gets-girl-back: humor is based on the
delusions and pretensions of young people in love, misunderstandings, etc. Familiarity
with the conventions of love poetry often required for appreciation of satire about lovers.
Comedy of manners — humor requires a knowledge of the social mores and fashions referred
to in the plays; jokes center around social hypocrisies and pretensions. This type of
comedy would probably only be funny to people who were familiar with the values and
behaviors of the elite characters being satirized.
Witty comedy — humor based on wordplay (puns and literary allusions) and on comic heroes
who use intelligence and language to outwit their adversaries and get what they want. This
type of comedy requires the highest level of previous knowledge on the part of the
audience, since much of the humor assumes a sophisticated command of the nuances of
language and the uses of formal logic and rhetoric.
No one play ever featured only one type of humor exclusively — most comic plays feature a
mixture of all these types. You will note, though, a decided hierarchy of humor in this list,
from “low-class” to “high-class.” Shakespeare’s theater was not overly concerned with
observing decorum, or a separation of comic styles — that would come later, in the 18th
century.
TYPES OF TRAGEDY
Critic Northrop Frye developed a general outline for the typical tragic plot pattern:
1. ENCROACHMENT — The protagonist takes on more than he should and makes a mistake
that ultimately causes his own “fall;” it is often an act blindly done, demonstrating the hero’s
faith in his own power to regulate the world or his insensitivity to others. Even in cases where
the act is unconscious, the tragic hero encroaches on the norms of human conduct within a given
world.
2. COMPLICATION — This builds up and includes the events that align opposing forces.
3. REVERSAL — This is the point at which it becomes clear that the protagonist’s
expectations are mistaken, that his fate will be the reverse of what he had hoped. At this minute,
the vision of the audience and dramatist are the same.
4. CATASTROPHE — This exposes the limits of the protagonist’s power and dramatizes the
waste of his life. Piles of dead bodies remind us that the forces unleashed are not easily
contained; there are also elaborate subplots in later tragedies, which reinforce the impression of a
world inundated with evil.
5. RECOGNITION — The audience (and sometimes the protagonist) recognize the larger
pattern inherent in the action. If the protagonist does experience recognition, s/he begins to share
the vision of reality that the dramatist and the audience see. From this new perspective s/he can
see the irony of her/his actions.
NOTE: You may have heard the term “tragic flaw” (hamartia) used to describe the cause of a
protagonist’s downfall. We prefer Aristotle’s “some error of human frailty” or Frye’s
“encroachment” because these terms offer subtler and more complicated descriptions of the
human condition. The problem is rarely a simple personality quirk on the part of one character.
26

27. Element of DRAMA TV
Drama is a literary composition involving conflict, action crisis and
atmosphere designed to be acted by players on a stage before an
audience. This definition may be applied to motion picture drama as well
as to the traditional stage.
Apply these questions to a recent movie you have seen or a radio or
television drama,
Conflict
1. What did the leading character want?
2. What stood in his way? (People - environment- personality,
etc,)
3. What was the high point of tension or the crisis? (This is
where the leading character must make a crucial decision that
will effect the outcome of the play.)
Character analysis
1. Are the characters true to life or are they types or
caricatures?
2. How is the character revealed?
3. What is the driving force of each leading character?
4. If a character changes, are the causes convincing and true to
life?
Setting
1. Are the sets appropriate?
2. Are they attractive?
3. Are they authentic?
Critical standards useful for drama, novel, motion pictures:
1. What is the chief emphasis (ideas, character, atmosphere)?
2. What was the purpose? (entertainment, humor, excitement)?
3. Is it realistic or romantic?
4. Does it show life as it really is or distort life?
5. Does it present any problem of human relationship?
6. Does it glamorize life and present an artificial happy ending?
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28. Types of Drama:
1. Tragedy -- In general, tragedy involves the ruin of the leading
characters. To the Greeks, it meant the destruction of some
noble person through fate, To the Elizabethans, it meant in
the first place death and in the second place the destruction
of some noble person through a flaw in his character. Today it
may not involve death so much as a dismal life, Modern
tragedy often shows the tragedy not of the strong and noble
but of the weak and mean,
2. Comedy -- is lighter drama in which the leading characters
overcome the difficulties which temporarily beset them
3. Problem Play -- Drama of social criticism discusses social,
economic, or political problems by means of a play.
4. Farce -- When comedy involves ridiculous or hilarious
complications without regard for human values, it becomes
farce.
5. Comedy of Manners -- Comedy which wittily portrays
fashionable life.
6. Fantasy -- A play sometimes, but not always, in comic spirit in
which the author gives free reign to his fantasy, allowing
things to happen without regard to reality.
7. Melodrama -- Like farce, melodrama pays almost no attention
to human values, but its object is to give a thrill instead of a
laugh. Often good entertainment, never any literary value.
Types of Drama of Historical Interest:
1. Medieval mystery plays -- dealt with Bible stories and
allegorical mysteries.
2. Chronicle plays -- dealt directly with historical scenes and
characters.
3. Masques -- were slight plays involving much singing and dancing
and costuming. They were usually allegorical.
Drama is the most dependent of art forms -- director, actors, scene and
costume designers must interpret before the audience does.
The Place of the Actor
1. The player should respect his play, his part, his fellow players,
and his audience.
2. He should have imagination enough to create character for us
instead of merely exploiting his own personality.
3. He should have a technical equipment in his 'voice, facial
expression, bodily poise, gesture, and by-play that enables him
to project the character as he conceives it.
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29. (Drama)
1. Allusion - an indirect reference by casually mentioning something that is
generally familiar (In literature we find many allusions to mythology, the
Bible, history, etc.)
2. Aside - Lines whispered to the audience or to another character on
stage (not meant to be heard by all the characters on stage)
3. Catastrophe - the final event in a drama (a death in a tragedy or a
marriage in a comedy)
4. Comedy - A light play with a happy ending
5. Comic Relief - A bit of humor injected into a serious play to relieve the
heavy tension of tragic events
6. Crisis or Climax - the turning point in the plot (This occurs when
events develop either for or against the main character and a crucial
decision must be made.)
7. Dramatic Irony - occurs when the audience knows something that the
character on stage is not aware.
8. Foreshadow - Lines that give a hint or clue to future events (It doesn't
tell the future but hints at it.)
9. Irony -
· A method of expression in which the ordinary meaning of the
word is opposite to the thought in the speaker's mind
· Events contrary to what would be naturally expected
10. Metaphor - an implied comparison between two different things;
identifying a person or object as the thing to which it is being compared.
Example: 'It is the East and Juliet is the sun.' - 'tossed on the sea of
life'
11. Metonymy - a figure of speech whereby the name of a thing is
substituted for the attribute which it suggests. Example: The pen (power
of literature or the written word) is mightier than the sword (force).
12. Nemesis - agent of retribution (the person who punishes)
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30. 13. Personification - giving the quality of life to inanimate things
14. Poetic Justice - The operation of justice in a play with fair
distribution of rewards for good deeds and punishment for wrong doing
15. Simile - an expressed comparison between two different things using
'like' or 'as' - Example: 'eyes twinkle like stars' - 'as loud as the roaring
sea'
16. Soliloquy - A single character on stage thinking out loud (a way of
letting the audience know what is in the character's mind)
17. Tragedy - A serious play having an unhappy ending
18. Tragic Flaw - A character trait that leads one to his/her own downfall
or destruction
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