WHAT IS DRAMA?

sad, but in the study of drama it has a much

Greek verb – dran means “to do” or “to more specific meaning
act”
Types:
The earliest known plays:
o Written around the fifth century B.C. GREEK TRAGEDY
o Produced for festivals to honor The protagonist, usually a person of
Dionysus, the god of wine and importance and outstanding personal
fertility. qualities, falls to disaster through the
combination of a personal failing and
A DRAMA is a story enacted onstage for a circumstances with which he or she cannot
live. deal.

SIMILARITIES OF STORIES AND PLAYS ROMAN TRAGEDY

Stories have Plays Mostly adaptations of Greek tragedies. Made
o Characters o Consists up of spoken dialogue in iambic trimeters.
carrying entirely of
out a characters’ ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN TRAGEDY
series of words and Elizabethan often involve main characters of
actions. actions. high status who committed an error or
o Driven by o The playwright flawed, encounter a reversal of fortune and
a conflict may describe die towards the end of the play.
of some the characters Jacobean usually have the characteristics of
kind. and settings in revenge tragedies.
o Plot. the script but
the audience REVENGE TRAGEDY
never hears Dominant motive is revenge for a real or
these stage imagined injury: it was a favorite form of
directions. English tragedy in the Elizabethan and
o The audience Jacobean eras and found its highest
sees and expression in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
hears only the
actors’
interpretations COMEDY
of them. Any plays that has a happy ending – even if
the play isn’t funny.

SPECIAL FEATURES OF PLAYS Aristotle divides comedy into three

1. Plays are divided into acts and categories:
scenes.
2. Scripts feature lists of characters and FARCE
stage directions which require the Often called “low comedy”. The emphasis is
reader to pause and visualize the set almost entirely on plot, with bawdy jokes
up and physical humor. Elements of farce
3. Readers and actors must pay close include such things as chases, disguises,
attention to the dialogue in order to talking at cross purposes, and slapstick
understand the characters and (pratfalls, slipping on banana peels, etc.).
action. Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear is a farce.

FOUR MAIN TYPES OF DRAMA ROMANTIC COMEDY

o Tragedy It is focused on humorous plotlines centered
o Comedy on romantic ideas, such as dating, marriage,
break-ups, and true love.
o Melodrama
o Tragicomedy
SATIRE
This is also considered to be high comedy.
1. TRAGEDY In satire, the playwright pokes fun at social
One of the oldest types of Drama. Since the customs and current fashions - sometimes
days of the Great Greek. Playwright including specific individuals of the times-
Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides. Very
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perhaps in some effort to change the SPECTACLE-the visual elements of the
current thought and behavior. Aristophanes production of a play; the scenery, costumes,
satirized many elements of Greek culture in and special effects in a production.
his plays. Moliere satires, such as the
Imaginary Invalid, Tartuffe, and The Would-
be Gentleman were sometimes so biting DRAMATIC STRUCTURE
that his career was threatened. Like the plot of a story, the plot of a play
involves characters who face a problem or
PARODY conflict.
It is a specific form of satire in which a very
familiar play/song/movie/etc.. is recreated in Exposition
a humorous way, poking fun at the original characters and conflict are introduced
version.
Complications
2. MELODRAMA tension builds
Melodrama is the category for plays about
serious subjects where plot is more Climax
important than characters and theme. point of highest tension action determines
Characters tend to be rather flat, and they how the conflict will be resolved.
don't change or develop during the course
of the play. Murder mysteries and suspense Resolution
thrillers fit into this category. conflict is resolved play ends

3. TRAGICOMEDY
A play that blends elements of both tragedy Structure of Shakespearian Plays
and comedy is known as a tragicomedy. The
remarkable thing about a tragicomedy is Act 1- Exposition, Exciting Force, Rising
that it can make you laugh and cry. A Action
tragicomedy might be a serious drama Act 2-Rising Action
interspersed with funny moments that Act 3-Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action
periodically lighten the mood, or a drama Act 4-Falling Action
that has a happy ending. Act 5-Falling Action, Catastrophe

Stages Defined
ARISTOTLE’S SIX ELEMENTS OF DRAMA
Exposition -The general atmosphere, time,
PLOT-what happens in a play, the order of place, main characters and opening
events, the story as opposed to the theme; conditions of the play.
what happens rather than what it means.
Exciting Force - Something happens that
THEME-what the play means as opposed to starts the action of the play moving, usually
what happens (plot); the main idea within in the first act.
the play.
Rising Action- This is a series of actions
CHARACTER-the personality or the part an usually covering more than one act. During
actor represents in a play, a role played by the rising action, the protagonist is the
an actor in a play. active force, trying to make things work out
as he or she intended.
DICTION/LANGUAGE/DIALOGUE-the word
choices made by the playwright and the Climax-The protagonist reaches a peak of
enunciation of the actors delivering the his or her power and a distinct change
lines. occurs in them as well as the direction of
the action. Things begin to go against the
MUSIC/RHYTHM - by music. Aristotle protagonist, who seems to be following a
meant the sound, rhythm and melody of the downward path.
speeches.
Failing Action- This also covers several
scenes and shows all the ways the main

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events are going against the main
character. At this time, the protagonist
begins to rise in power. The conflict between
the protagonist and the antagonist becomes
the essence of the play.

Moment of Firat Simo - Usually found in

the fifth act of the play, the moment of final
suspense has a particular function in the
organization of the plot. Close to the end of
the play, it is more significant to the
protagonist that it is to the audience. It is
the moment when things begin to look as if
they will go the way of the protagonist
again. He or she momentarily believes that
tragedy will be averted.

Catastrophe-The is the complete downfall

of the protagonist, either through death or
some other devastating circumstance. If the
protagonist is a villain, then the catastrophe
will be seen by the audience as a good
thing. If not…..

THE CHARACTERS

Dialogue: conversations of characters

onstage
Monologue: long speech given by one
character to others
Soliloquy: speech by a character alone
onstage to himself or herself or to the
audience
Asides: remarks made to the audience or to
one character; the other characters onstage
do not hear an aside.

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