Introduction to English Literatures

Drama- Lecture 9
What is Drama?
Drama is literature that is primarily written for
theatrical performance.

A dramatic text consists of two components: (1)

It is literature to begin with (2) but it is
incomplete without the performative aspect.
Every dramatic text contains of instructions,
known as secondary text, for performance.
Multi-medial (audio, visual, textual)
Theatre Studies/Literary Studies (performance
criticism)
History of Drama
 Greek Drama: 500-400 B.C.
(tragedy, comedy, amphitheatres, annual competitions)
 Medieval: The Middle Ages 1200-1500 AD
 (Liturgical, morality; example: The Castle of Perseverance)
 Elizabethan & Jacobean:1500-1642
 (Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson )
 Restoration & 18th Cent. Drama :1660-1800
(John Brute’s The Provoked Wife )
 Romantic Era:1800-1880
(Keats, Byron, Shelly)
 Modern Era :1880-Present
(absurd, regular drama, Beckett, Pinter)
Conventions of Drama
 Cast of Characters: listed in the beginning of
the play, before the action starts
 Act: a major division of a play
 Scenes: a major division of an act
 Stage Directions: a dramatist’s instructions
for performing a play (secondary text)
Waiting for Godot
(Italics: secondary text, non-italics: primary text)

ACT I
A country road. A tree.

Evening.

Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it
with both hands, panting.
He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. As before. Enter Vladimir.
ESTRAGON: (giving up again). Nothing to be done.
VLADIMIR: (advancing with short, stiff strides, legs wide apart). I'm beginning
to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying
Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. And I resumed
the struggle. (He broods, musing on the struggle. Turning to Estragon.) So
there you are again.
ESTRAGON: Am I?
VLADIMIR: I'm glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.
Communication
 External
at the level of author and recipient, production and audience

 Internal/Intertextual
at the level of characters, text.
characters move between the roles of the addresser and addressee

Key Components of Internal Communication

Dialogue
Monologue
Soliloquy
Aside

(there is no narrator in drama)

Communication
- Between the Characters and Stage
Historical Author/ Recipient (reader and theatre apparatus)
(addresser)

- Between the Cast and the Audience

Theatre apparatus and audience
(addresser)

Epic Theatre . Stage Manager.

Inside the Action . Outside the Action
Shaffer’s Amadeus (clip) . Wilder’s Our Town
Verbal . Non Verbal . Alienation Effect
Types of Drama
 Comedy
(Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well)
 Tragedy
(Shakespeare's Othello)
 Romantic Comedy (boy gets the girl, loses
her, and gets her again: Shakespeare's A
Midsummer Night’s Dream)
 Satiric Comedy (critique of society, wit, Oscar
Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest)
 Farce (verbal humor, mixed plot, subversion,
eg. Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew)
 Absurd (meaningless of existence, Beckett’s
Endgame, Pinter’s The Homecoming)
 Semiotics of Theatre

Codes

Acoustic/Visual
Stage Set (Durative) – do not Change
Gestures and Facial Expressions (Non-Durative)
–
Change

(Transparency)
Information and Verbal Communication
‘Dramatic introduction’ (phatic)
(Waiting for Godot)

‘Exposition’ (referential- drama text, context)

(clip – The Tempest)

Can occur concurrently

Isolated/Initial (separate from the action proper)

(examples Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle)

Integrated (part of the action proper)

(clip Richard III)

Analytical Drama – genre – Analysis of exposition is present

throughout
Monologue and Soliloquy

Soliloquy – Character speaks to himself/herself in

his or her lonely presence

Monologue – Character speaks to himself/herself

addressing others/ in the presence of others

Obvious of artificiality, realistic dramas avoid them.

They can also serve as ‘exposition’ and ‘introductio

n’ of the drama.