The Nature of
Drama
CHAPTER 1
What is Drama

Definition: a story that is enacted in real space
and time by live actors for a live audience.


Based on Greek word dran, meaning “to do”
Earliest copies from 5th century in ancient Greece

For festivals for Dionysus (God of wine and fertility)

Competition each year to see who would win with best play

Most Greek conventions within theater are still followed today

Despite the genre, all plays originally emulated plots
similar within literature we see today

So what makes it so different?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjLrMxO4cys
What Separates Drama from other
Literature?

It is written to be performed, not read. It has a tremendous source of power if done correctly.
It normally presents actions:
1. Conveyed through actors

Costumes

Impact is direct, immediate, and heightened by actor’s skills

Limitations of thought process were seen until conventions of:

Dialogue- conversations between characters on stage


Monologues- Long speeches by individual characters


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8RoH-ky6Kw
Soliloquy- characters are presented as speaking to themselves


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfiY9B_F74I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pusU90ov8pQ
Aside- characters turn from the persons with whom they are
conversing to speak directly to the audience or to one character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mYaKObc_3w
What Separates Drama from other
Literature?
2. Performed On stage (thrust, in the round, proscenium arch)

Forcefully commands spectators attention

(controlled lighting, sounds, seating, distractions, speed)

Not only dependent on power of words

Scene Design

Lighting

Props

Stage directions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6VFfGvAVZI
What Separates Drama from other
Literature?
3. Performed before an audience

spectator = “to view” and audience “to hear”

Actors and playwrights can feed off of audience response

The experience created is communal and its impact is intensified.

Spectator’s responses are influenced by other spectators many times

“One of the special qualities of theater is that when we respond, we respond as a group.”
– Robert Anderson

Do you agree? Does an audience affect one’s performance?
Tragedy
1.
2.
Always includes tragic hero who is a man of noble and moral stature

Greatness about him, not ordinary but one of outstanding quality.

He is good though not perfect and his fall results from “an act of injustice”
The hero always has a downfall which is a result of result of his/her own
free choice, not accident. This personal failing is known as the tragic flaw

3.
4.
This misfortune is not usually wholly deserved.

Punishment often exceeds the crime

Hard to say “He got what was coming to him.”
The tragic fall is not pure loss

5.
This is where “discovery” usually takes over
Though solemn emotions are aroused (pity and fear),
if done correctly more positive emotions are evoked
(compassion and awe)


Greatness + flaw = pity
Should not leave depressed but rather contemplative!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj7R36s4dbM
Comedy
1.
A play that ends happily

Contains own typical conflicts and plot patterns

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl etc. (visa versa with gender)
2.
Central characters do not have to be noble or righteous
3.
Conflicts usually hinge on a problem of the heart (internal)

Thwarted courtship, romantic misunderstanding.

Although resolved happily, always comical complications
4.
Melodrama: like tragedy attempts to arouse feelings of
fear and pity, but it does so ordinarily through cruder means.
5.
Farce: like a comedy it is aimed at rousing explosive
laughter, but again by cruder means.
As you like it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHnCA10mof0
Tragedy vs. Comedy

Pity and fear

Pleasure and absurdity

Human possibility

Human ridiculousness

High plausibility in plot

Low plausibility in plot

Emphasize uniqueness

Emphasize commonness

Judge on moral standards

Judge of social standards

Human greatness (nobility)

Human weakness (anybody)

Human freedom

Human limitations

External conflicts

Internal conflicts

Ends contemplative

Ends happy
 Both focus on personal issues
 Emphasis on psychological
development of characters
 Modern theater has tried to
change these standards for
both genres as times
William Shakespeare

We know very little about Shakespeare compared to other authors

However, there is more material on Shakespeare than any other author

Baptized on April 1564 (Public Records) therefore born most likely a couple days before

Birthday is celebrated on April 23rd but only because he also died on this date in 1616

Father was merchant (John) and a man of some importance in the town

Serving as alderman and high bailiff (aka mayor)

Attended Stratford Grammar school where he was schooled in Latin and Greek/Roman myths

Married in 1582 to Anne Hathaway (8 years older)

1583 had their first child (Sussanna)

1585 twins (Hamnet and Judith)
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1592 he falls of the face of the world (most likely went to London to seek his fortune)

Rival was Robert Green who warned other playwrights from doing what Shakespeare did (acting  writing plays)

Actors were looked down upon and lumped together with “vagabonds” and “rogues”

Julius Caesar was most likely written in 1599 after a Swiss traveler commended the Globe

Died at 52 and buried in Holy Trinity Church

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geev441vbMI