P L A Y

A N A L Y S I S
Lotlot D. Bustamante
Liceo De Cagayan, Cagayan De Oro, Osamis Oriental
The Overview of Play Analysis

FRANCIS HODGE
The Overview of Play Analysis (Hodge)
7 major areas of play-analysis:
1. Given circumstances
2. Dialogue
3. Dramatic action
4. Characters
5. Idea
6. Tempos
7. Moods
 Concerns all material in a
playscript that delineates
the environment– the
special “world” of the play–
in which the action takes GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES
place.
(Playwright’s setting):
the foundation of the
This material includes:
playscript

1. Environmental facts – specific conditions, place and time

2. Previous action – all that has happened before the action begins

3. Polar attitudes – points of view toward their environment held by the principal characters
4. Dialogue is the only reliable source of given circumstances

5. When you study plays, you quickly become aware that all
authors write the settings directly into their dialogue, either
overtly or subconsciously.

6. Setting is a matter of feeling about objects and places, it

is about time and what has happened before the play
begins, is about the feelings of the characters for the world
of the play
 Geographical location – the exact place

Religious environment – formal and informal psychological controls

Environmental Facts
 Previous Action

All plays begin somewhere in the middle of things

Previous action is what an audience is told happened before the
present action begins (i.e. what an audience actually sees
happening immediately in front of it)
Exercise: underline texts that recall the past
Polar Attitudes
• Every character in a play, as in real life, is
conditioned by the special world he is caught in,
and he will hold specific attitudes, or points of
view, toward the world. These attitudes will
consist of his prejudices, his tolerances, and his
assumptions about his special world, where he
is forced to have relationships with others and is
forced to take actions affecting both himself and
others.
 Dialogue is heard Dialogue is structured lines and
Dialogue is the language (reproduces speeches, it is artificially
vehicle of dramatic word-feeling); must contrived, author usually
learn to match speech arranges his sentence structure to
action, the lifeblood throw the important phrase – the
decorum to character
of the play. decorum actual point of each line– to the
end of the line to make it
climactic

DIALOGUE
DRAMATIC ACTION

Because drama
Is the clash of forces means doing or
in a play – the acting, the hard core
continuous conflict of all plays is
between characters

1) action, and
2) characters
Characteristics of Dramatic Action

1. Present tense – state of I do, not I did

2. Action vs. Activity (latter is the
illustration of the action; activity is the
how, action is the what)
3. All action is reciprocal (all action forces
counter-action, with adjustments in
between)
4. The divisions of action (total action of a
play is divided into major sections)
5. Finding and labeling the action(p.37)
6. Recording the action
 Character is Revelation

Simple and Complex Characters Character is Action

CHARACTERS: made up of
all dramatic actions taken
by an individual in the
course of a play
Techniques of Character Description
Desire (what a character wants most)
Will (relative strength for attaining her desire)
Moral Stance (values)
Decorum (physical appearance)
Character-Mood-Intensity
 I
D
E
A
➢Idea is the core meaning of what the play has to say

➢It is both derived from an assessment of the characters in

action and is a summary statement of such action.
➢Consequently the idea is the sum total of the playscript.
 O
P
.

M When a sequential
arrangement of
tempos are
combined, that is,

E when the varying

beats of several
consecutive units are
strongly felt, you

T
have identified the
pulsations of a play–
its rhythm.
Tempos are the changing rates of
beats of the dramatic action in a
play
1. Moods are the feelings or emotions generated from
the clash of forces in the dramatic action.
2. When taken together in their accumulative
effect, moods declare the tone of a play.
3. An appropriate tone for a play
is the goal of the director
4. Moods are thus
the tonal feelings
of a play

M
O
O
D
S
NOW…
GET A PLAY and create an analysis of
that material based from the template.

30 mins.