Creative Nonfiction

Module 3 - Drama

If Filipino poets, according to some of the poets themselves, are in danger of extinction,
you can say the same thing about playwrights (those who write dramatic plays) and
scriptwriters. In fact, if you ask the judges for poetry and any category on drama (one-act
play and full-length play) in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards, they will tell you that
the entries submitted for the latter would not even reach a quarter of the former. But
there is an emergent poetic genre for young ones like you. This form of performance
poetry, called spoken word, is an idea that Project VOICE founder Sarah Kay was
fascinated about, because her “two secret loves—poetry and theater—had come together.
For starters, you need to understand the difference between drama and play;
also, to distinguish drama, dula, and teatro in Filipino. The Western concept of drama,
based on its equivalent, stage play, is a play with dialogue and performance by actors for the
stage. Theater is a performance or a place where actors perform. By today’s standards,
drama is a play not only performed onstage, but also on TV, radio, and other platforms
If you notice, stage is a key word here. A play has to be performed onstage. By
Western standards for centuries, a play that was not performed onstage is a debilitated play. To
a greater extent, they dismiss that it is not a play at all. In his book El Teatro Tagalo (1889),
Vicente Barrantes, the first Spaniard who wrote about plays in the country, proclaimed that all
Tagalog plays were only copied from Spanish plays. He even went so far as to say that it is
useless to search for proof of a “national literature” and a “respectable play” before his
countrymen arrived. After scouring tons of documents, it was expected that Spanish
historiographer Wenceslao Retana would disagree. But in 1909, he sided with Barrantes
and said not a single Tagalog play existed before 1571, the year the Spanish
conquistadors occupied Manila and declared it as their colonial capital.
These details, documented by literary essayist and food critic Doreen Fernandez in her
book Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theater History, are useful to you in your study of the
drama. For the two Spanish scholars, a play is considered genuine if it satisfies two
demands: it has to be performed onstage and it has to be based on a script. The
second condition highlights the claim that a play should be written first before it is
performed. There was a third demand, according to them: the actors have to have elegant
costumes like the ones that were used in the comedia and auto sacramentales of the
Spaniards. The accepted traditional Philippine drama, according to essayist and National
Artist for Literature Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera, “comes in three Western forms introduced during
the period of Spanish colonization. These are the sinakulo and the komedya, which native
playwrights writing between the 17th and the 19th centuries developed under the auspices of
parish priests and landholding native elites in Manila and the provinces. A third form,
introduced during the final decades of Spanish rule was the sarsuwela, which an emerging
intelligentsia was to cultivate as a dramatic form that best represented the interests and
self-image of the Filipino after the Revolution of 1896.” However, we must look at our
traditional theater in the form of native rituals, ceremonies, chanting, and dances. For
example, the Tagbanua’s nine-day harvest time dance ritual of the babaylan and her baylanes
called Inim or Pagdidiwata.
Plot is one element of drama. Recall how a narrative is divided using Freytag’s
Pyramid—from the exposition, to the rising action, reaching the climax, then sliding
down to the falling action, and to close the story, the denouement. This formula is also
used in drama. It is also called dramatic structure. Note that the tripartite division of plot
(beginning, middle, end) is evident in the three-act play. A play can be divided into acts
(mga yugto). The shorter one is called one-act play, 25Creative Nonfiction and Other Literary
Genres and the longer one is the full-length play or three-act play. There is also a five-act play.
One act can last from 30 to 90 minutes, sometimes 10 minutes. As a playwright, knowing how
long an act takes to finish will give you an idea as to how many pages it would take to finish
your script. The curtain is closed after each act. At this point, the voice-over announces
that there will be a break for a few minutes. The audience can freshen up. But this
break also gives the production the chance to change the set, props, and backdrop. As a
playwright, this knowledge suggests to you that you can change the setting of your story. In a
three-act play, each act usually has a different tone to it. The most commonly used, but
not always, is the first act having a lot of introductory elements; the second act can usually be
the darkest, with the antagonists having a greater encompass; the third act is the resolution,
with the protagonists prevailing. There is an age-old saying that “the second act is the
best” because it is in between a starting act and ending act; thus, it is able to delve deeper into
more of the meat of the story because it does not need to have as many prominent
introductory or resolutive portions. Of course, this is not always so because a third act
or even a first act can have the common second act characteristics, but the most used is
that type of structure.
Setting
The setting is another element of drama. You already learned a few things about
the milieu from the previous lessons. As in a written narrative, the setting should be clear in
your script. Your script must specify the details of the place where the story is happening and
the time when it is happening. Take, for example, the first part from Nick Joaquin’s play A
Portrait of the Artist as Filipino: An Elegy in Three Scenes.
When you write the script, you do not just say, for example, that the scene
happens at a house. Keep in mind the following:
1. Mention what part of the house the scene is taking place.
2. Mention where the house is located.
3. Mention the time of the day and the date.
Those pieces of information are needed because most of the time, the playwright is not the
same person as the director. Also, the playwright is not present during the
brainstorming and the rehearsals all of the time. If you have specified the setting in your
script, you will not only help the director and the actors. The production staff who
makes the costumes, props, and backdrop will benefit from it as well. They will know
what they have to produce, down to the last detail.
Characters
The set of characters is another element of drama. Go back to Joaquin’s play. Notice that a
short description of each character—what they are or how they are related to each other—is
mentioned right away. Again, this is a big help for the director and the actors. The
actors will be able to “internalize” their role. Remember that the “characters” in a play are not
the “actors.” The actors are the ones who portray the role of the characters in the story. The
characters do not have to be humans. They could be animals or inanimate objects,
depending on the story.

Other Forms of Theatrical Performance

Earlier, you learned that some acts do last for 10 minutes tops. But there are other
short theatrical performances aside from the one-act play such as the improv, skit, and
monologue, for example. A skit ranges from a one-minute to a ten-minute performance.
Skits can be performed anywhere; in-between acts or at a cosplay (costume play) contest.
A monologue does not have a specific length. Long form monologues can take as long
as two hours to perform. If an actor needs to perform a monologue for an audition, he or she
may choose a script that can be performed in three minutes, with words that will
showcase his or her acting prowess in less than a minute. You can make a monologue
out of a part of a play, a poem, or another monologue. There are two types of
monologue based on how the actor delivers it. These are the following:
1. interior monologue – when the actor expresses his or her innermost thoughts and feelings
2. dramatic monologue – when the actor is talking to another individual, may it be an
imaginary character or a part of the audience
The improv is another short form of theatrical performance. Palanca hall-of-famer Dr.
Reuel Aguila said the improvisation method does not use a formal script; just an outline of the
dramatic situation. While only the director interprets your script in the usual setup, the improv
lets the actors participate in the creation of the play. Essayist Dr. Apolonio Chua further
explained improvisation as the creation of a play based on the personal experience or
observation of the people involved in the creation. It is a collective process. Take note that an
actual, elevated stage is not needed to perform the three short forms of play. Also, in
terms of drama, the live performance of actors is not needed. In a radio drama, for
example, the station can broadcast a performance using a recorded audio medium such
as tape or CD.
In a radio play, the audience or the receiver will not be able to see the actions.
Because it is limited to a pure acoustic performance, the dialogue should be more
detailed. If an actor is afraid, or if he or she has tears in his or her eyes, the audience
will not know it. So, it must be a part of the dialogue. The actor should say, “I am
afraid.” Or better yet, exaggerate it, for example “Oh my God! Why am I feeling this way? I
am scared to death!” Or use figurative speech such as, “I am shaking like a leaf!” The same way
with having tears in one’s eyes. Another actor can say to the person, “Why are you crying?” or
“Why are there tears in your eyes?” Or any of the actors can voice out his or her thoughts.
Or a sound effect can do this for you, such as the sound of a racing heartbeat or labored
breathing.

Literary Techniques in Drama

A literary technique that stems from drama or theater is called breaking the fourth wall. In a
work of fiction, breaking the fourth wall means the narrator or any of the characters suddenly
“wakes up,” realizes that he or she is in a fictional work, and addresses the reader. In
drama, it means one of the actors suddenly talks to the audience or responds to the
reaction of the audience. Or the audience suddenly participates in the play itself. “What
is the fourth wall?” you may ask. Imagine the stage where the drama, theater, or
performance art takes place. The stage has three walls used for the fictional work: the
upstage (farthest from the audience), stage left (to the performers’ left), and stage right (to the
performers’ right). The production staff could install the set, props, and backdrop on
those three walls. The “fourth wall” is the imaginary wall between the stage or performers and
the audience. The audience is always expected to just watch and enjoy the performance.
When the fourth wall is broken, they participate in the play.
The literary technique Chekhov’s gun was named after Russian playwright and
fictionist Anton Chekhov. He advised to “remove everything that has no relevance to the
story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or
third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be
hanging there.” Just like any form of art, drama is mimetic. It imitates life. Aside from
the radio drama, we have scripted dramas in television in the form of a drama show or
drama series. Also, you will notice that, just like our Southeast Asian neighbors, we also
have a long tradition of shadow plays and puppet shows with puppets made from wood,
paper, fabric, and other materials.

Let’s check your understanding. Please answer the following:

What have I learned so far?

1. What is common theater and stage?
2. What effect does watching a live play make on the cultivation of the soul and
culture of the individual?
3. Some directors do not stick to the script and even demand major revisions from
it. If you were the scriptwriter, how would you feel about these revisions on your
work?
4. Differentiate an internal monologue from a dramatic monologue.
5. Why is the live performance of actors not needed in a radio drama?

Note: Deadline is on November 21, 2020. Please pass on time.

(farthest from the audience), stage left (to the performers’ left), and stage right (to the
performers’
right). The production staff could install the set, props, and backdrop on those three
walls.
The “fourth wall” is the imaginary wall between the stage or performers and the audience. The
audience is always expected to just watch and enjoy the performance. When the fourth
wall is
broken, they participate in the play.(farthest from the audience), stage left (to the
performers’ left), and stage right (to the performers’ right). The production staff could install
the set, props, and backdrop on those three walls. The “fourth wall” is the imaginary wall
between the stage or performers and the audience. The audience is always expected to just
watch and enjoy the performance. When the fourth wall is broken, they participate in the
play.