This document defines key elements and concepts in drama, including: - Drama presents a story entirely in dialogue and action, intended for performance before an audience. - It has aspects of both literature and theater, with settings, characters, plots, themes, and styles. - Characters are defined physically, socially, psychologically, and morally. Plots can be natural or episodic sequences. - Common elements include exposition, complications, crisis, obligatory scenes, and discovery. - Different genres include tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, farce, and melodrama. Tragedy shows a noble person's downfall while comedy ends happily.

1. Josefino T. Larena CPS,CPE,MPA

2. Drama is a composition
in prose form that
presents a story
entirely told in
dialogue and action
and written with the
intention of its
eventual performance
before an audience.

3. Drama has a two-fold nature:
LITERATURE and THEATRE.

4. THEATRE

6. Setting identifies the time and place in which
the events occur. It consists of the historical
period, the moment, day and season in which
the incidents take place. It also includes the
sceneries in the performance which are usually
found in the preliminary descriptions.

7. Characters are the people in the play and thus
considered as the principal material in a drama.

8. Physical Social
 Physical identifies
peripheral facts such as
age, sexual category,
size, race and color. It
deals with external
attributes which may be
envisaged from the
description of the
playwright or deduced
from what the
characters say or what
other characters
verbalize about his
appearance.
 Social embraces all
aspects that can be
gleaned from the
character’s world or
environment as
exemplified by the
economic status,
occupation or trade,
creed, familial
affiliation of the
characters.

9. Psychological Moral
 Psychological
discloses the inner
mechanism of the
mind of the character
as exemplified by his
habitual responses,
attitudes, longings,
purposes, likes and
dislikes. It is
considered as the
most indispensable
level of character
 Moral discloses the
decisions of the
characters, either
socially acceptable or
not, exposing their
intentions, thus
projecting what is
upright or not.

10. Plot lays out the series of events that form the
entirety of the play. It serves as a structural
framework which brings the events to a
cohesive form and sense.

11. Natural Plot Episodic Plot
 Natural Plot is a
chronological
sequence of events
arrangement where
actions continuously
take place as an end
result of the previous
action
 Episodic Plot – each
episode
independently
comprises a setting,
climax, and
resolution; therefore,
a full story in itself is
formed.

13. Exposition
 Exposition is the point
where the playwright
commences his story. It
reveals the identity of
story’s initial crisis.

14. Complications Crisis
 Complications bring
changes and alterations
in the movement of the
action which take place
when discovery of novel
information,
unexpected alteration
of plan, choosing
between two courses of
action or preface of
new ideas are revealed.
 Crisis reveals the
peak of anticipation
in the series of
incidents.

15. Obligatory Scene Discovery
 Obligatory Scene
identifies the open
collision between two
opposing characters
or forces.
 Discovery discloses
points which are
previously unknown,
characterized as
something
mysterious, strange,
unfamiliar and thus
revealed through
objects, persons,
facts, values, or self-
discovered.

17. Theme is considered as the unifying element
that defines the dramatized idea of the play. It
is the over-all sense or implication of the
action. It defines the problem, emphasizes the
ethical judgment and suggest attitude or
course of action that eliminates the crisis is an
acceptable way.

18. Style refers to the mode of expression or
presentation of the play which points out the
playwright’s position or viewpoint in life.

19. Realism Non-realism
 Realism is an
accurate detailed,
and life-like
description in a play
where things are
presented as real as
can be set in actual
life, with dialogues
sounding like day-to-
day conversation.
 Non-realism is
method of
presentation
identified as
something stylized or
theatricalized
whereby artist uses
his feral imagination
in projecting his
ideas.

21. T
Traditionally one who possesses a character weakness called
a tragic flaw. The tragic hero, through choice or
circumstance, is caught up in a sequence of events that
inevitably results in is a type of drama that shows the
downfall anddisaster.Tragedy destruction of a noble or
outstanding person,

22. Comedy is a type of drama intended to interest and
amuse the audience rather than make them deeply
concerned about events that happen. The characters
overcome some difficulties, but they always overcome
their ill fortune and find happiness in the end.

23. Tragicomedy is a play that does not adhere strictly to
the structure of tragedy. This is usually serious play
that also has some of the qualities of comedy. It
arouses thought even with laughter.

24. Farce is a play that brings laughter for the sake of
laughter, usually making use grossly embellished
events and characters. It has very swift movements,
has ridiculous situations, and does not stimulate
thought.

25. Melodrama shows events that follow each other rapidly, but
seems to be governed always by chance. The characters are
victims in the hands of merciless fate.