e Dramatic Vision: An Overview
afua has inuch in common with the other genres of
(:~t'ature. Like fiction, drama focuses on one or a few
t~jor characters who enjoy success or endure failure
·'they face challenges and deal with other characters.
ny plays are written in prose, as is fiction, on the·
j)lfociple that the language of drama should resemble
lhe language of life as much as possible. Drama is also
like poetry because both genres develop situations
through speech and action. Indeed, a great number of
fJlays, particularly those of past ages, exist as poetry.
The dramatists of ancient Athens employed intricate
tJoetic forms in their plays. Many European plays from
ihe Renaissance through the nineteenth century were
~VIitten in blank verse or rhymed couplets, a tradition
of poetic drama preserved by twentieth-century dramatists such as T. S. Eliot and Christopher Fry.
AB separate genres, however, there are necessarily
major differences among drama, fiction, and poetry. FicHon is distinguished from drama because the essence of
fiction is narration-the relating or recounting of a sequence of events or actions, tl1e actual telling of a story.
Poetry is unlike both drama and fiction because it exists
hi. many formal and informal shapes, and it is usually the
shortest of the genres. Although we usually read poetry
silently and alone, it is also frequently read aloud before
groups. Unlike both fiction and poetry, drama is literature designed for impersonation by people-actors-for
the benefit and delight of other people-an audience.
I
~I DRAMA AS LITERATURE
Dr":ma is a unique genre because it can be presented
and discussed both as literature-drama itself-and as
performance-the production of plays in the theater.
The major literary aspects of drama are the text, language, characters, plot, structure, point of vierv, tone, syinbOlism, ·and theme or meaning. All these elements have
remained constant throughout the history of drama.
CHAPTER
1164 t~,
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Chapter 26 - The Dramatic Vision: An Overview
In addition, drama written in poetic forms, such as Shakespeare's Hamlet and A
Midsummer Night's Dream, includes elements such as meter and rhyme.
The Text Is the Printed (or Handwritten) Play
.\:
Th e text of a play is in effect a plan for bringing the play into action on the stage.
The most notable feamres of the. text are dialogue monologue, and stage directions. Dialogue is the conversation of two or more characters. A monologue is
spoken by a single character who is usually alone onstage. Stage directions are
the playwright's in tructions about facial and vocal expression, movement and
action, gesture and «body language," stage appearance, lighting; and similar matters. In addition, some dramatists, such as George Bernard Shaw and Tennessee
Williams, provide introductions and explanations for their plays. Such material
may be considered additional directions for interpretation and staging.
Language, Imagery, and Style Bring the Play to Life
What we learn about characters, relationships, and conflicts is conveyed in dramatic language. Through dialogue, and sometimes through soliloquy and aside,
<e.haracters use language to reveal intimate details about their lives and their
deepest thoughts-their loves, hatreds, hopes, and plans.
To bring uch revelations b fore the audience, dramatists employ words
that have wide-ranging connotations and that acquire many layers of meaning.
Such is the case with the many variations of the phrase 'well liked" in Arthur
Miller's Death of a Salesman. Similarly, playw1ights can introduce metaphors and
ymbol that contribute significantly to the play's meaning and impact. Again in
Death of a Salesman, the abandoned au to trip and tbe imminence of an auto accident are central symbols.
Dramatists also make ure that the words of their charaClers fit tbe circumstances the time, and the place of the play. Miller's Willy Loman speaks the language of modern America, and Shakespeare's Hamlet speaks Elizabethan blank
verse, almost academic prose, and "one-liner" remark . In addition, dramatists
employ accents, dialects, idiom, jargon, and cliches to indicate character traits.
The gravediggers in Hamlet speak in a Renaissance English lower-class dialect
that distinguishes them from the aristocratic characters in the play.
Characters Talk Themselves Alive Through Speech and Action
Drama necessarily focases on its characters, who are persons the playwright create
to embody the play's actions, ideas, and attitudes. Of com;se characters are characters, no matter where we find them, and many of the character types that populate
drama are also inhabitants of fiction. The major quality of characters in drama, however, is that they become aJive through peech and action. To understand them we
must listen to their words and \vatch and interpret how they react both to their circumstances and to the characters around them. They are also sometimes described
and discussed by other characters, but primarily they are rendered dramatically.
Chapter 26 - The Dramatic Vision: An Overview
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Drama is not designed to present the full life stories of its characters.
Rather, the plots of drama bring out intense and highly focused oppositions or
conflicts in which the characters are engaged. In accord with such conflicts,
most major dramatic characters are considered as protagonists and antagonists.
The protagonist (the first or leading struggler or actor), usually the central character, is opposed by the antagonist (the one who struggles against). A classic
conflict is seen in Shakespeare's Hamlet, in which Prince Hamlet, the protagonist, tries first to confirm and then to punish the crime committed by King
Claudius, his uncle and the play's antagonist.
Just as in fiction, drama presents us with both round and flat characters. A
round, dynamic, developing, and growing character, like Shakespeare's Hamlet
and Ibsen's Nora, possesses great motivation. The round character profits from
experience and undergoes a development in awareness, insight, understanding,
moral capacity, and the ability to make decisions. A flat, static, fixed, and unchanging character, like those who enter close to the end of Stanley Kauffmann's The More the Merrier, does not undergo any change or growth. There is
no rule, however, that flat characters must be dull. They can be charming, vibrant, entertaining, and funny, but even if they are memorable in these ways,
they remain fixed and static.
Dramatic characters can also be considered as realistic, nonrealistic,
stereotyped (or stock), ancillary, and symbolic. Realistic characters are designed
to seem like individualized women and men; they are given thoughts, desires,
motives, personalities, and lives of their own. Nonrealistic characters are often
undeveloped and symbolic. An interesting example is Torvald Helmer oflbsen's
A Dollhouse. In terms of his assumptions and expectations, he is nonrealistic for
most of the play, but he becomes sadly realistic when he recognizes the disastrous effects of his previous outlook on life and marriage. He is unique because
he does not so much grow as undergo an almost instant change.
Throughout the ages, drama and other types of literature have relied on
stereotype or stock characters, that is, unindividualized characters whose actions
and speeches make them seem to have been taken from a mold. The general types
developed in the comedy of ancient Athens and Rome, and in the drama of the Renaissance, are the stubborn father, the romantic hero and heroine, the clever male servant,
the saucy maidservant, the braggart soldier, the bumpkin, the trickster, the victim, the insensitive husband, the shrewish wife, and the lusty youth. Modern drama continues
these stereotypes, and it has also invented many of its own, such as the private eye,
the stupid bureaucrat, the corrupt politician, the independent pioneer, the kindly prostitute,
the wner cowbay, and the town sheriff who never wses the draw in a showdown.
There are also ancillary characters who set off or highlight the protagonist
and who provide insight into the action. The first type, the foil, has been a feature of drama since its beginnings in ancient Athens. The foil is a character who
is to be compared and contrasted with the protagonist. Laertes and Fortinbras
are foils in Hamlet. Because of the play's circumstances, Laertes is swept into destruction along with Hamlet, whereas Fortinbras picks up the pieces and gets
life moving again after the final death scene. The second type is the choric figure, who is loosely connected to the choruses of ancient drama. Usually the
1166
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Chapter 26 - The Dramatic Vision: An Overview
'
choric figure is a single character, often a confidant of the protagonist, such as
Hamlet's friend Horatio. When the choric figure expresses ideas about the
play's major issues and actions,. he or she is called a raisonneur (the French
word meaning "reason.er") or commentator.
Any of the foregoing types of characters can also be symbolic in the context of individual plays. They can symbolize ideas,. moral values, religious concept.;;,. ways of life, or some other abstraction. For instance, Linda in Death of a
Salesman symbolizes helplessness before destructive forces, while Fred Higgins
in Mulatto symbolizes the cynicisn1, indifference, cruelty, and misuse of responsibility that accompany the concept of racial supremacy.
Action, Conflict, and Plot Make Up a Play's Development
Plays are made up of a series of sequential and related actions or incidents. The
actions are connected by chronology-the logic of time-and the term given to
the principles µnderlying this ordered chain of actions and reactions is plot,
which is a connected plan or pattern of causation. The impulse controlling the
connections is conflict, which refers to people or circumstances-the antagonist-that the protagonist tries to overcome. Most dramatic conflicts are vividly
apparent because the clashes of\vills and characters take place onstage, right in
front of our eyes. Conflicts can also exist between groups, although conflicts between individuals are more identifiable and therefore more common in plays~
Dramatic plots can be simplified and sch.ematized, but most of thern are as
complicated as life itsel[ Special complications result from a double or multiple
plot-two or more different but related lines of action. Usually one of these
plots is the main plot, but the subplot can be independently important and
sometimes even more interesting. Suc.h a situation occurs in A Midsu·m-mer
Night's Drearn, where the exploits of Bottom and the "mechanicals," which form
just one of the four strands of plot, are so funny that they often steal the show in
productions of the play.
Structure Is the Play's Pattern of Organization
The way a play is arranged or laid out is its structure. With v·ariations, rnany traditional plays contain elements that constitute a structure of five stages. (1) exposition
or introduction, (2) complication and development, (3) crisis or climax, (4) Jailing action, and (5) dinouernent, -resolution, or catastrophe. In the nineteenth century, the
German novelist and critic Gustav Freytag ( 1816-1895) visualized this pattern as a
pyramid (though he used six elements rather than five). In the so-called Freytag
pyramid, the exposition and complication lead up to a high point of tension-the
crisis or climax-followed by the falling action and the catastrophe.
This pyramidal pattern of organization can be observed to greater or lesser degrees throughout many plays. Some plays follow the pattern closely, but
often there is uncertainty abbut when one phase of the stn1cture ends and the
next one begins. In addition, words defining some of the stages are variable.
Even though students of drama agree about the meaning of the·first nvo stages,
the terrr1s for the final three are not used with precision. With these reservations, the Freytag pyramid is valuable in the analysis of dramatic plot structure.
Chapter 26
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The Dramatic Vision: An Overview
1167
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1. THE EXPOSITION OR INTRODUCTION BRINGS OUT EVERYTHING WE NEED TO KNOW TO
In the first part of a
drama, the dra1natist introduces the play's. l:J:ackgro_und, characters, _situat_ions,
and conflicts. Although exposition is occasionally presented through direct
statements to the audience, the better method !s to render it dramatically. Both
major and minor .characters thus perform the task of exposition through dramatic dialogue-describing situations, actions, and plans, and also explaining
the traits and motives of.o.ther characters. In such away, Sophocles in Oedipus t}ie
King provides expository material in the prologue featuring Oedipus, the Priest,
and Creon; Eugene O'Neill in Befrm Breakfast dramatizes the exposition in the
early actions and speeches of the major character, Mrs. Rowland. In Hamlet, Horatio's explanations to Barnardo and Marcellus provide vital information about
circumstances in the Danish.court.
UNDERSTAND AND FOLLOW WHAT IS TO HAPPEN IN THE PLAY.
2. THE COMPLICATION AND DEVELOPMENT MARK THE ONSET OF THE PLAY'S MAJOR
In this second stage; also called the rising action, we see the beginning of difficulties that seem overwhelming and insoluble, as in Hamlet, where
we learn in the exposition that a death of the king has occurred before the play
opens. Complication develops as the characters try tb learn" answers to some of
the following perplexing questions: Was the death a murder? If so, who did it?
How was it done? How can the murderer be identified? Is the man suspected of
the murder truly guilty? What should be done about the 'murder? What punishment should there be? In A Midsummer Night's Dream, less serious complications
result frolll the development of issues like these: Can young lovers overco1ne
parental opposition? Can a bumbling group of amateur actors.successfully perform a play hefore .the highest social gr011p in the nation? Can a.squabble
among supernatural beings be brought to a peaceful conclusion?
CONFLICTS.
3. THE CRISIS OR CLIMAX IS THE CULMINATION OF THE PLAY'S CONFLICTS ANO COMPLICA·
The uncertainty and anxiety of the
corµplication lead to the third stage, the crisis ("turning point") or climax ("high
point"). In this third stage, all the converging circumstances compel the hero or
heroine to recognize what needs to be done to-resolve the play's major conflict. Another way of considering the crisis or climax is to define it as that point in the play
when uncertainty ends and inevitability begins, as when: Hamlet vo,vs vengeance
aft.er dra\ving conclusions about tl1e King's reaction to the player scene.
TIONS-THE INTENSE MOMENTS OF DECISION.
1168
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Chapter 26 ~ The Dramatic Vision: An Overview
'
The downward slope
of the pyramid is the falling action, which contains complicating elements deferring the play's conclusion. In Hamlet, for example, a number of scenes make
up the falling action: Hamlet's decision not to kill Claudius at prayer, Hamlet's
departure for England, the gravedigger scene and the conflicts at Ophelia's
grave, and the murderous conspiracy of Claudius and Laertes. In Oedipus the
King, Oedipus continues to seek confirming evidence about the death of his father, although by the end of Episode 3-the climax-he has all the information
he needs to detern1ine that he himself is the murderer.
4. THE FALLING ACTION IS A TIME OF AVOIDANCE AND DELAY.
5. THE DENOUEMENT 15 THE END, THE LOGICAL OUTCOME OF WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE.
In the denouement ("unraveling") or resolution ("untying"), also called the catastrophe ("overturning"), all tragic protagonists undergo suffering or death, all
mysteries are explained, all conflicts are resolved, all mistakes are corrected, all
dastardly schemes are defeated, all long-lost children are identified, all obstacles
to love are overcome, all deserving characters are rewarded, and the play ends.
In short, the function of the denouement is to end complications and conflicts,
not to create new ones. It is important to observe that the word catastrophe for
the final dramatic stage should not necessarily be construed in the serise of a
calamity, even though most tragic catastrophes are calamitous. It is probably
best, however, to use the words dinoue-ment and resolution as general descriptions
of a play's final stage and to reserve catastwphe for tragedies.
·
Of great significance is that the various points of the pyramid define an abstract model that is applicable to most plays-tragedy, comedy, and tragicomedy
alike. Since the time of Shakespeare, however, most dramatists writing in English have been concerned less with dramatic form than with dramatic effect. As
a result, many plays in English do not perfectly follow the pattern charted in the
Freytag pyramid. You should therefore be prepared for plays that conceal or
delay essential parts of the exposition; create a number of separate crises and climaxes; crowd the climax, falling action, and denouement into a short space at
the play's end; or modify the formal pattern in other significant ways.
Point of View Focuses on a Play's Major Character
(or Characters) and Ideas
In fiction, the concept of point of view refers to the narrative voice of the story,
the speaker or guiding intelligence through which the characters and actions
are presented (see Chapter 5). In drama, the term refers generally to a play's
perspective or focus-the ways in which dramatists direct attention to the play's
characters and their concerns. In the theater, dramatists govern our responses
visually by putting major characters onstage and keeping them there. That these
characters are always speaking and moving before our eyes makes us devote our
attention to them, become involved with them, and see things pretty much as
they see things. For example, once the opening speeches of Hamlet are over, the
play focuses directly on Hamlet and never wavers, even after he lies dead on the
stage in the last act. In O'Neill's Before Breakfast, the entire play is a monologue
spoken by Mrs. Rowland; and we therefore see things from her perspective even
though tve recognize her limitations and shortcomings.
Chapter 26 - The Dramatic Vision: An Overview
1169
ward slope
:ments deenes make
·,Hamlet's
Ophelia's
)edipus the
1 of his fa-
The drarnatist can also keep characters and issues in our minds by causing
other characters to speak about them. Thus when each of the major characters
in 1'he Jvlore the i\!Ierrier leaves the stage, the onstage characters discuss their persons, their qualities, and their intentions.
f"Ormation
Authors of plays have unique ways of conveying tone beyond those used by poets
and fiction writers (see Chapter 8). Some of these are vocal ranges, stage gestures (such as rolling one's eyes, throwing up one's hands, staring at another
character, holding one's forehead in despair, jumping for joy, making side remarks, and staggering in grief). Even silence, intensive stares, and shifting
glances can be effective means for creating moods and controlling attitudes.
Whereas the voices and actions of actors establish mood on the stage, we
do not have these guides in reading. There are written guides, ho'\vever, to dra1natic tone: Sometimes a playwright uses stage directions as an indication of
tone, as Ibsen does in A Dollhou.se, directing the inflections of a speaker's voice
with the stage direction that she is shaking her head when speaking. Similarly,
Hughes suggests the mood of one of his characters in Mulatto with the direction
that he "runs" to his mother and hugs her "teasingly."
When such directions are absent-and usually they are-we need to take
the diction, tempo, imagery, and context as clues to the tone of specific speeches and whole plays. In the opening scene of Haml.et, Shakespeare uses short and
rapidly delivered sentences to create a mood of fearfulness, anxiety, and apprehensiveness. This opening passage anticipates the Ghost's forthcoming charge
of murder against Claudius, and it also prepares us for the orninous events to
come in the rest of the play.
One of the most common methods playwrights employ to control the tone of
the play is dramatic irony. This type of situational (as opposed to verbal) irony
refers to circumstances in which characters have only a partial, incorrect, or misguided understanding of what is happening, \vhile both readers and other characters understand the situation completely. Readers hence become concerned about
the characters and hope that they will develop understanding quickly enough to
avoid the problems bedeviling them and the threats endangering them. The classic example of dramatic irony occurs in Sophocles' Oedipus the King: As Oedipus
conde1nns the rnurderer of his father, he also un-wittingly condemns himself.
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Tone or Atmosphere Creates Mood and Attitude
, Dramatists Frequently Introduce Symbolism and Allegory
In drama, as in fiction and poetry, the meaning of a symbol extends beyond its
surface meaning (see Chapters 9 and 21). Dramatic symbols, which can be characters, settings, objects, actions, situations, or statements, can be both cultural or
contextual. Cultural or universal symbols-such as crosses, flags, snakes, and
flowers-are generally understooc:I by the audience or reader regardless of the
context in which they appear. In Act 5 of Hanzl.et, for example, we readily accept
Yorick's skull as a symbol of death. Contextual or private symbols develop their
impact only within the context of a specific play or even a particular scene. We
1170
Chapter 26 - The Dramatic Vision: An Overview
often don't realize at first that such objects or actions are symbolic; they acquire
symbolic meaning only through context and continued action. In the livingroom.setting of Hughes's 1VIulatto, for instance, there is a vestibule "leading to the
porch." There is nothing unusual about this location, but as the play develops \Ve
realize that it symbolizes how the rights and privileges of whites on the plantation
are denied to the African Americans who work there.
When a play offers consistent and sustained symbols that refer to general
human experiences, that play can be construed as an allegory, or at least as
being allegorical. For example, Ibsen's A Dollhottse can be considered allegorically as an expression of the shortcomings of any way of life in which a gro\vn
person is infantilized and therefore is prevented fro1n realizing the mature and
independent life that she is entitled to seek as an adult.
Subject and Theme Are the Complex of Ideas Presented
by the Dramatist
Nlost playwright5 do not aim to propagandize their audience, but nevertheless
they do embody ideas in their plays. The aspects of humanity a playwright explores constitute the play's subject. Plays can be about love, religion, hatred, \Var,
ambition, death, envy, or anything else that is part of the human condition.
The ideas that the play dramatizes make up the play's theme or meaning.
A play might explore the idea that love will always find a way or that marriage
can be destructive, that pride always leads to disaster, or that grief can be conquered through strength and a commitment to life. Full, evening-long plays can
contain many the1natic strands. Ibsen creates such complexity in A /)ollho-use, in
'\Vhich he deals with themes of selfless devotion, egotism, pon1pousness,
hypocrisy, betrayal, and won1en 's self-deter1nination. Even short plays can have
complex themes, as in O'Neill's Before Brnakfast, which explores the themes that
anger can be stronger than love, that deceit is a consequence of alienation, and
that despair and fear can conquer the normal wish to live .
•
~I PERFORMANCE: THE UNIQUE ASPECT OF DRAMA
As we read and talk about drama, we should always remind ourselves that plays
are nieant to be acted. It is performance that makes a play immediate, exciting, and
powerful. The elements of perforn1ance are the actors, the director and the
producer, the stage, sets or scenery, lighting, costu-nies and nzake-uj1, and the a-udience.
Actors Bring the Play to Our Eyes and Ears
Good actors are trained and have the experience to exert their intelligence;
emotions, itnaginations, voices, and bodies to bring their roles into our presence. Actors speak as they imagine the characters might speak-earnestly, eagerly, calmly, excitedly, prayerfully, exultantly, sorrowfully, or angrily. When they
respond, they respond as they imagine the characters might respond-with
Chapter ZG - The Dramatic Vision: An Overview
117-1
surprise, expectation, approval, happiness, irony, acceptance, rejection, resignation, or resolution. When they move about the stage according to patterns
called blocking, they move as they imagine the characters might move-slowly,
swiftly, smoothly, hesitatingly, furtively, stealthily, or clumsily, and gesturing
broadly or subtly. Actors also frequently engage in stage business-gestures or
· movernents that make the play dynamic, spontaneous, and often funny.
The Director and the Producer Create and Support
the Play's Production
In the theater, all aspects of performance are shaped and supervised by the
director and the producer. The producer, the one with the money, is responsible for financing and arranging the production. Working closely with the producer is the director, who is probably the n1ost significant member of the entire
dramatic production. The director cooperates closely with the actors and guides
therr1 in speaking, responding, standing, and moving in ways that are consistent
with his or her vision of the play. When a play calls for special effects (for example, the Ghost in Hamlet) ho th the producer and the director work with specialists such as n1usicians, choreographers, and sound and lighting technicians to
enhance and enliven the performance.
The Stage Is the Location of Both Speech and Action
Most rr1odern theaters feature an interior proscenium stage-a picture-fra1ne
stage that is like a room with one \Vall missing so that the audience can look in
on the action. In most proscenium stages, a large curtain representing the missing \Vall is usually opened and closed to indicate the beginning and ending of
acts. Members of the audience who are seated centrally before the stage are
close to the action, but people seated at the sides, to the rear, behind a tall person, or in the balcony are to greater or lesser degrees removed from the vital
and up-close involvement that is desirable in good theater. There is no question
that such remoteness is a built-in disadvantage of many prosceniutn stages.
Modern theater designers have therefOre experimented with stage designs
inspired by theaters of the past. One notable success has been to revive the
shape of the ancient Greek amphitheater (with seats rising from the stage in an
expanding hall'circle), a structure employed in theaters like the Tyrone Guthrie
in Minneapolis and at the Shakespeare Festival Theatre in Ashland, Oregon. Because seats for the audience ascend in semicircular tiers around three sides of
the stage, most of the audience is closer to the action-and better able to seethan in a theater with a proscenium stage. The audience is also, therefore, more
closely involved in the dramatic action.
Like inany other rnodern theaters, these theaters feature a thrust stage or
apron stage (like the platform stage used in the time of Shakespeare), which enlarges the proscenium stage with an acting area projecting into the audience by
twenty or 1nore feet. It is on this apron that a good deal of the acting occurs.
Closely related to the apron stage is theater-in-the-ro1md, a stage open on all
1172
Chapter 26 - The Dramatic Vision: An Overview
sides like a boxing ring, surrounded by the audience. Productions for both types
of stages are especially lively because the actors usually enter and leave through
the same doorways and aisles used by the audience.
Sets (Scenery) Create the Play's Location and Appearance
Most productions use sets (derived from the phrase "set scenes," i.e., fixed
scenes) or scenery to establish the action in place and titne, to underscore the
ideas of the director, and to determine the level of reality of the production. Sets
are constructed and decorated to indicate a specific place (a living room, a
kitchen, a throne roon1, a forest, a graveyard) or a detached and indeterrninate
place vvith a specific atn1osphere (an open plain, a vanished past, a nightmarish
future). When we first see the stage at the beginning of a perforn1ance, it is the
scenery that we see, bringing the play to life through walls, vvindo'\vs, stairways,
furniture, furnishings, and painted locations.
In most prosceniun1 stages, the sets establish a permanent location or
scene resembling a framed picture. All characters enter this setting, and they
leave once they have achieved their iinn1ediate purpose. Such a fixed scene is established in Oedipus the King; which is set entirely in front of the royal palace of
ancient Thebes, and in JJqOre Brealifast, set in an apartn1ent kitchen. Generally,
one-act plays rely on a single setting and a short hnagined time of action. Many
full-length plays also confine the action to a single setting despite the longer
imagined time during which the action takes place.
Because sets are usually elaborate and costly, 1nany producers use single
fixed-scene sets that are flexible and easily changed. Some productions employ a
single, neutral set throughout the play and then mark scene changes with the
physical introduction of movable properties (or props)-chairs, tables, beds,
flo,ver vases, hospital curtain-enclosures, trees, shovels, skulls, and so on. The use
of props to mark separate scenes is a necessity in inodern productions of plays that
require constant scene changes, like l-Janzlet. Interestingly, tnany productions
make scene changes an integral part of the drama by having costun1ed stagehands, or even the actors then1selves, carry props on and off the stage. In a 1995
New York production of Hamlet, for example, Hamlet himself (performed by
Ralph Fiennes) carried in the chairs needed for the spectators of the player scene.
The constant changing of scenery is so1netimes avoided by the use of a unit
set-a series of platforms, roon1s, stairs, and exits that form the locations for all
the play's actions, as in ~liller's J)eath of a Salesrnan. The n1oven1ent of the characters from place to place vvithin the unit set marks the shifting scenes and
changing topics.
Like characters, the setting can be realistic or nonrealistic. A realistic setting, sotnetirnes called a naturalistic setting, requires extensive construction and
properties, for the object is to create as lifelike a stage as possible. In O'Neill's
Before /Jreakfast, for exan1ple, t11e setting is a realistic copy of a tacky earlytwentieth-century New York apart1nent kitchen. l)y contrast, a nonrealistic setting is nonrepresentational and often sy1nbolic. Son1eti1nes a realistic play can
be rnade suggestive and expressive through the use of a nonrealistic setting.
Chapter 26 - The Dramatic Vision: An Overview
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Lighting Creates Clarity, Emphasis, and Mood
In ancient and medieval times, plays were performed in daylight, and hence no
artificial illumination was required. With the advent of indoor theaters and
evening performances, lighting became a necessity. At first, artificial lighting was
provided by lanterns, candelabras, sconces, and torches (yes, some theaters
burned down), and indirect lighting was achieved by reflectors and valancesall of which were used with great ingenuity and effect. Later, gaslight and limelight lamps replaced the earlier open flames.
The evolution of theater lighting reached its climax with the development
of electric lights in the nineteenth century. Today, dramatic· performances are
enhanced by virtually all the technical features of our electronic age, including
specialized lamps, color filters, spotlights, dimmers, and simulated fires. This
dazzling technology, which employs hundreds or even thousands of lights of
varying intensity in unlimited combination, is used to highlight individual characters, to isolate and emphasize various parts of the stage, to establish tilnes, and
generally to shape the moods of individual scenes. Lighting can also divide the
stage or a unit set into ditierent acting areas simply through the illumination of
one section and the darkening of the rest, as in productions of plays like Miller's
Death of a Salesman. The result is that lighting has become an integral element of
set design, especially '\Vhen the dramatist uses a scrim (a curtain that becomes
transparent when illuminated frorn behind), '\Vhich permits great variety in the
portrayal of scenes and great rapidity in scene changes. In our day it is a rare
stage indeed that does not contain an elaborate, computerized, and complicated (and expensive) lighting system.
Costumes and Makeup Establish the Nature
and Appearance of the Actors
Actors make plays vivid by wearing costumes and using makeup, which help the
audience understand a play's time period together with the occupations, mental
outlooks, and socioeconomic conditions of the characters. Costumes, '\Vhich include not only dress but items such as je'\velry, good-luck charms, swords,
firearms, and canes, can be used realistically (farm women in plain clothes, a
salesn1an in a business suit, a king in rich robes) or symbolically (a depressed
character wearing black). Makeup usually enhances an actor's facial features, just
as it can fix the illusion of youth or age or emphasize a character's joy or sorrow.
The Audience Responds to the Performance
and Helps to Shape It
To be complete, plays require an interaction of actors and audience. Drama enacts fictional or historical events as if they were happening in the present, and
me1nbers of tl1e audience-whether spectators or readers-are direct '\Vitnesses
to the dramatic action from start to finish. The audience n1ost definitely has a
creative impact on theatrical performances. Although audiences are made up of
people who otherwise do not know-each other, they have a common bond of interest in the play. Therefore, even though they are isolated by the darkness of
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Chapter 26 - The Dramatic Vision: An Overview
the theater in which they sit, they respond communally. Their reactions (e.g.,
laughter, gasps, applause) provide instant feedback to the actors and thus continually influence the delivery and pace of the performance. For this reason,
drama in the theater is the most immediate and accessible of the literary arts.
There is no intermediary bet:\veen the audience and the stage action-no narrator, as in prose fiction, and no speaker, as' in poetry.