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
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfiY9B_F74I
 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=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. 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”
2. 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
 Greatness + flaw = pity
3. This misfortune is not usually wholly deserved.
 Punishment often exceeds the crime
 Hard to say “He got what was coming to him.”
4. The tragic fall is not pure loss
 This is where “discovery” usually takes over
5. Though solemn emotions are aroused (pity and fear),
if done correctly more positive emotions are evoked
(compassion and awe)
 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
 Human possibility
 High plausibility in plot
 Emphasize uniqueness
 Judge on moral standards
 Human greatness (nobility)
 Human freedom
 External conflicts
 Ends contemplative
 Both focus on personal issues
 Emphasis on psychological
development of characters
 Modern theater has tried to
change these standards for
both genres as times
 Pleasure and absurdity
 Human ridiculousness
 Low plausibility in plot
 Emphasize commonness
 Judge of social standards
 Human weakness (anybody)
 Human limitations
 Internal conflicts
 Ends happy
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)
 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