Dram Study Guide

Play genres/form: i.e.

Comedy have been around since ancient times.
Tragedy serious play; always ends in the death of one or more character and focuses on
a theme about human life and society. The main character has a flaw .
melodrama tragedy that ends happily. The designation of a suspenseful, plot oriented
dram featuring all good heroes and all bad villains
farce plays intended to create continuous hilarity through ridiculous scenerios
history play dramatize major historical and political events.
problem play characterized by there complex and ambiguous tone, which shifts
violently, between dark, psychological drama and more straightforward comic relief.
Satire a play or other literary work that ridicules social follies, beliefs, religion, or human
vices almost always in a lighthearted vein
Plot
Mechanics of story telling; the sequencing of the characters coming and goings; a time
table of the plays events; and the specific ordering of the revalations, reversals, quarrels,
discoveries, and actions take place onstage
Plot is a structure of actions both the outer actions and the inner ones
Story is just the narrative that happens in the play.
Six Components Tragedy in order importants according to Aristotles
Plot defined above
Character importance is to make the audience care
Theme - the plays oerall statement: its topic, central idea or message
Diction refers to the literary character of a plays text, including its tone, imagery and
articulation
Music important to mention that the plays in aristotles time were sung or chanted, not
spoken
Spectacle Production of senery, costumes, ighting make up, overall look and the
threatre or stage.
o Spectacle refers to something seen
Seventh Component Convention
The agreement between audience and tactor by which the audience willingly suspends
its disbelief and accepts the new and temporal reality
Horizontal Axis Three Parts
Pre-play refers to the gathering procession in the
Play has identifiable elements that happen throughout the script
Post-play
Stucture or timing of a play
Axis Dramturgy
The action of a play has specific pattern (i.e. beginning middle and end)
Dramaturgy is a method analyzing a play
Exposition
 Introduces the audience to the character and their story.
Background information is revealed that clarifies what about to happen
Conflict
The driving force in the play
A play with no conflict would be boring
Climax
Turning point of the play
Moment of most tension
Denounment
Resolution of the play (conflict)
Did X get y ?
means
Catharsis the purgation of pity/fear happens at the climax
Perspective scenery
scenery and the scene design technique that represents three-dimensional space
on a flat surface, creating an illusion of reality and an impression of distance.
Proscenium arch
the arch that makes up a stage kinda makes a picture frame
seperates the audience
Wing (Scenery)
parts of the stage that are not accessible to audience only the actors
Amphitheatre
Outdoor with no roof
Advantages
o No bad seats
o Good natural sound qualities
Procenium
Advantages
o Not limited to one set
o Acts costume can change
o A lot of space
Disadvantages
o Lots of space
o Less intimiate
o Worry about projection to be heard
Thrust Stage
Audience is on three sides
Advantages
o Lower cost
o Walkways also acting space
o Lower cost
Disadvantages
o Walls have to be way in the back
 o One side will always have back to the actor
o Props / costumes have to be more realistic
o Musicans have smaller area due to no pit
Arena
o People on all four sides
o Advantages
o Actors/action can be much closer to the environment
o More people in the front row
o Disadvantages
o Hard to make set pieces it will block someone
o Back always to someone
o Constantly worry aobut angles or views
o Changes need be in full view
o Scenery is restricted
o Hard to light
o Can see audience across the way
Black Box
o Empty room can design stage however you see fit
o Advantages
o Turn into anything we want
o Cheaper and easier to build
Disadvantages
o Time consuming labor intensive
o Small
o Limited lighting scenery capabilities
o Need more detail because audience is closer
Box set
Stage left/stage
o View from the pefromers
Upstage/downstage
o Downstage is towards the audience
Apron
o Part of the stage located in front of the proscentum; the forward-most portion of the stage.

Drama/dran = to take action, to do, to make

Agon action in greek the root word for agony. Agon refers to the major struggles and
interactions of Greek tragedy
theatron the origin of the greek word for theater also known as seeing place
hamartia In aristotles poetic, the tragic flaws of the protagonist
William Shakespear
o Actor
o Playwright
o Part owner an acting company
English Drama Characteristics
o Medieval practices
o Revenge
o Violence
o Supernatural characteristics
o Neutral Platform stage
Elizabethan theatrical convention
o Use of spoken dcor to establish locations
o Minimal scenery
o Use of soliloquy
o Dont see set pieces
Iambic pentameter
o a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed)
syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable, for example Two households,
both alike in dignity.
Dramatic Action has identifiable components and a specified beginning of end
Ensemble group of musicans that play togethert
Origins of Acting
First Actors
Egypt
o Passion play depicting Osiris murder
o People died during battle scenes
Greeks
o Thespis supposedly jumped on to a wooden crate and recite poetry as if he were the main
character
o The origin style or tragedy was actually all sung poetry with one character embodyding
the protagonist, while the other four actors made up the chorus
Four playrights
o Aeschylus
o Sophoculus
o Euripides
o All great trageties
Aristophanes wrote comedies
Commedia Dell Arte
o Italy
o First form of professional theatre
o Would put masks on to embody certain archeotypes
o Meant to instill morality and be entertaining
Konstantin Stanislavski
o The stankislavski system
o father of acting
o Co-founded the moscow theatre
o Believed that an actor training needed to go deeper than solely vocal or physical
development
 o They have to believe what they are saying
Methods of physical action
o Discouraged table work and long discussion
o Focuses on improvisional situation to get into the mind of body of character
o This allows active analysis
o
Magic IF
o What would a character do do in this
o describes an ability to imagine oneself in a set of fictional circumstances and to
envision the consequences of finding oneself facing that situation in terms of
action
Stella Adler
o Doesnt wanna do method acting and draw up on old emotion
o Actors should stimulate emotion experience by imagining scene in given cirucmstances
o 50% internal , 50 % external
o Emphasis on given circumstances
Stanford Meiser
o Used repetition to make the words insignificiant compared to the underlying action
o Focus on the scene partner
o Instinticely respond to the environment
o Rejected affective memory
The Method
Lee Strasberg
o Method acting
o far more importantly, into the character's life before the curtain rises. In rehearsal, the
character's prehistory, perhaps going back to childhood, is discussed and even acted out.
The play became the climax of the character's existence
o Utilized effective memory
Dramatrugy : construction of drama and dramatic performance
Climatic Plot Structure
o The plot begins late in the story
o All roads converage to one climax
o Limited exposition
o Time span is short
o Scenes are limited
o Detective story : a leads to b : b leads to c
o Tightness of story
Episodic Structure
o Plots begin early in story, no compression
o Events tend to prolifierate
o Lots of locations
o Short scenes mixed with longer scene
Rituals and patterns
o A ritual
 o Renanctment that has gathered special meaning
Think national anthem
o Ritual has structure
Beginning middle and end
o Allows energy to be brought into theatre
o Patterns
o Allows for normal structure
o Gives audience a frame work
"Magic If" describes an ability to imagine oneself in a set of fictional circumstances and
to envision the consequences of finding oneself facing that situation in terms of action.