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Chapter 6: Drama: Lesson 1: Drama and Consequence

This document discusses drama and provides 3 key lessons: 1. Drama shows how people express themselves together and must occur in shared spaces, revealing connections to music, mime, ceremony and dance. Writers must adjust from inward to outward action when writing plays. 2. Drama can be seen as expressive ritual associated with public events like weddings and funerals, where events are conducted in prescribed form. Ritual can be a form of drama when it seals a division between past and future or shapes time. 3. The final lesson discusses action motifs in drama but provides no details on these motifs.

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134 views5 pages

Chapter 6: Drama: Lesson 1: Drama and Consequence

This document discusses drama and provides 3 key lessons: 1. Drama shows how people express themselves together and must occur in shared spaces, revealing connections to music, mime, ceremony and dance. Writers must adjust from inward to outward action when writing plays. 2. Drama can be seen as expressive ritual associated with public events like weddings and funerals, where events are conducted in prescribed form. Ritual can be a form of drama when it seals a division between past and future or shapes time. 3. The final lesson discusses action motifs in drama but provides no details on these motifs.

Uploaded by

Raquel Limbo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ELECTIVE 2: Creative Writing

WEEK 15

Learning Outcomes/Objectives:

a. Define drama.
b. Construct a drama which is relevant to today’s society.

Discussion:

CHAPTER 6: DRAMA
Lesson 1: DRAMA AND CONSEQUENCE
While writers of prose fiction have been free to explore the secret ‘inner rooms’ of their characters, to
focus on their conscious and unconscious rhythms, the subject of writing in the drama arts (theatre, screenplay
and radio) has shown how people express themselves together and to each other. Radio may be the exception; in
this medium we can still represent inner voices occupying the mind and move from scene to scene with the
speed of thought. In theatre and screenplay, however, no character can exist for long shielded behind his or her
own isolated consciousness; he or she must come forward, confront, be confronted, and what he or she says or
writes will be heard and read. Such a directive operates in fiction as well, but not the same practical extent.
Drama shows us both expression and reception. It must occur in spaces that are shared, and this aspect
confirms its cultural history, one that reveals deep connections with music, mime, procession, ceremony and
dance. Writers whose original medium is not drama often observe its shift from inward to outward action. The
poet Carol Rumens explains how when writing plays she has to adjust to this difference:
ELECTIVE 2: Creative Writing
ELECTIVE 2: Creative Writing
ELECTIVE 2: Creative Writing

Lesson 2: DRAMA AS RITUAL


One way to answer the question ‘What is drama?’ will be to do so using the idea of consequence, of
the consequential in its pace, delivery and impact, and to point out suspense as a feature of what most
audiences enjoy. Another, perhaps a little surprisingly, is to see drama as expressive ritual associated with
public events such as weddings, funerals, acts of worship and ceremony, and taking place – as in law-
courts, churches, government buildings – where the event is conducted in prescribe form. Suspense makes
the audience wait for something, an event that will surprise and horrify them. They are excited because they
think they know what might be about to happen, but will still be amazed by how it does. But often these two
forms of drama overlap.

Let us be clear about what we might mean by ritual in this wider context of drama. Most of us wouldn’t
describe our friend’s wedding as ‘good drama’ unless we were being ironic, or because something unpleasantly
odd happened during the ceremony. We might be more inclined to say that the whole experience was moving,
or special, by which we mean it sealed something, marked a division between past and future, or, using a term
familiar to readers of this book, it shaped time. Ritual can be drama, where drama signifies an enhanced
moment in which past and future divide, a new union or initiation gains public acknowledgement, a life at its
end receives respect and dignity, a final farewell is said. All drama needs the sense of a moment heightened,
lifted into significance in the long-term memory of the tribe. Public ritual can be a way of harnessing this
appetite, hence its interest for scriptwriters, playwrights, writers of screenplays, who know how these time-
shaping situations maximize the impact of a story.

Lesson 3: ACTIONS MOTIFS


ELECTIVE 2: Creative Writing
The following motifs point back to what we know, as well as forward to new inventions:

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