Drama Appreciation \ Drama 1
Review : Theatre is .....
Class notes pp. 29-45
Chapter 2: What is a play?
Duration: Time in watching a play. One minute ("Breathe" by Samuel Beckett) to 24 hours ( "Ka Mountain" by R. Wilson) but most plays last 1 1/2 to 2 hours with a ten minute intermission.
Genre classifications: (types of....)
1. Tragedy- Central character suffers or dies. A catharsis (purging of emotions) is reached. Tragedy began around 2000BC with the Greeks.
2. Comedy- Amusing and humorous but with an important theme, also began 2000BC with the Greeks.
3. Melodrama- Heroes and villains in a trivial plot, began in 1800s in America.
4. Farce- Wildly humorous with many exits and entrances, began in Rome 100BC.
5. Tragicomedy- A fairy tale that ends happily. The Cinderella story with a Hollywood (happy ending).
6. Dark comedy- Once called black comedy. Always ends tragically.
7. History- Real historical people and events with imagined dialogue.
8. Documentary- Real historical people and events with actual recorded dialogue.
9. Musical- Lyrics to songs accompany the dialogue with a complete musical score played by full orchestra. Dancing and choreography are included.
Structural Components: The parts of a play.
1. Plot- Several sentences that tell the sequence of events, the action that takes place, and the names of the central characters. Tell who, what, when, where, why, how.
2. Characters- The cast names, ages, professions, relationships to each other.
3. Theme- One sentence that states the main idea that is communicated to the audience. This can be different for each audience member. This is a universal idea for all mankind.
4. Diction- The style of language used: example- slang, foreign accents, and poetry.
5. Music- Accompanies most live theatre before, during the intermission, and after the show.
6. Spectacle- What is seen: The sets, costumes, lights, and total visual images.
7. Convention- Out of reality tricks that the playwrights uses to further the communication: examples- asides (the actor holds his hand to his cheek in a gesture of private conversation to the audience as if not being heard by characters on the stage.), flashback (scenes interjected that occurred previously.), freeze actions (some characters stop in action while others continue.), & soliloquies (a private speech by one character to the audience as if the character were thinking aloud.).
pp. 45-54
Structural Order:
The sequence in which the structure occurs. Both structural order and structural components were identified by Aristotle in his book Poetics written in 325 BC.
1. Gathering of the audience- The day, the time, and the place.
2. Transition- From real life to stage life. Done with music and light changes.
3. Exposition- the dialogue tells the audience who, what, where, when, why ...called the rising action.
4. Conflicts- Developed between characters or between a character and himself.
5. Climax- A confrontational explosion, where the main conflict is resolved. This is the catharsis.
6. Denouement (Deh-new-mahn)- The resolution of the play where the theme is told and exposed. Now the action begins to fall. This usually occurs directly after the climax.
7. Curtain call- The actors bow and the audience applauds (hopefully) this is the return to reality.
8. Critique- The actors, audience, and the professional critics all give their opinions. An analysis of what happened.
During the next two days we will be reading excerpts from West Side Story a musical tragedy, so that the principals of structural order and structural components will be understood.
West Side Story was written in 1954 with music and book by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and choreography by Jerome Robbins. It was taken from the plot of Romeo and Juliet (written in 1590) by Shakespeare, and the idea in the novelette East Side Story, a popular paperback in the 1950s.
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