3/4 and 3/5 Drama Lecture Notes

Agenda:

Attendance
Prayer
Vocab Quiz
New Vocab
H2NaD Quiz
Drama Notes

Homework:

Chapter 23 Elements of Language exercises 1 and 2

Reread A Marriage Proposal on page 413 of Adventures in Reading

Review Drama Notes (below): Quiz next class

Drama, a performance art and a genre of literature.
At the same time, you can study drama by
watching performances, or you can study drama by
reading the material.
It is like poetry in the above sense, and like poetry,
drama developed long before the novel and the short story.
Greek dramatists, like Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripedes,
were writing 2500 years ago.
Drama, more so than other genres, attempts to be an imitation
of life, and though some plays incorporate fantastic ideas and
surreal action, the characters tend to act as guided by logic and necessity.
Drama is a fictional text composed to be presented by one or
more performers to an audience.
Distinct from movies or television, however, drama
is presented at the exact moment that it is perceived or received.
Drama is composed of a tripartite relationship:
Script->Actor->Audience

Two major forms of DRAMA:
Tragedy- comes from a Greek word that means “goat song.”
Early drama had some connection to religious rituals.
Perhaps goats were sacrificed as part of the performance.
comedy-comes from a Greek word that roughly means
“singer of revels.” Comedy was associated with a joyous festival.

Six Essential Elements of Drama:
As described in Aristotle’s Poetics, these are the six
components of drama:
Action or Plot
Character
Thought
Language
Song and Dance
Spectacle or Visual Excess

Action or Plot
Fratek’s Pyramid-Exposition, Climax, Denoument.

Character
Unlike novels or short stories, which can employ passages
of description, playwrights shows us the nature of their
characters through action and language.
Protagonist
Antagonist
Foils - Pairs of characters who are opposites.
When they are on stage together, the qualities of one
highlight the qualities of the other.
Stock characters – Predictable characters that fulfill
customary roles, stock characters often provide the
comic relief for a drama. Characters like witty servants
and town drunks serve as examples that are very common.
Thought
Aristotle believed in a unity of action. That is, all the
action in the play must be the result of necessity or action.
This is related to thought because the characters in a drama
do not act randomly. The thought behind the drama
demands that each action be connected to the circumstances
surrounding it. Each character must be conceivably able and
inclined to act in the way he or she does.
Language
Dialogue
Monologue
Soliloquy
Aside
Spectacle
In addition to appealing to the ear, drama appeals to the eye.
Mise-en-scene is everything on the stage that adds meaning
to a play. Costumes and props are part the
mise-en-scene, and the location of props on the stage is
known as proxemics. Depending on what is on the
stage and how it is arranged, characters can employ a
variety of gestures and movements to add to the
effect of the action and language of the plot.

Open Stage (Peninsula Stage)

Proscenium Stage (Picture-Frame Stage)
Song and Dance
Not every drama includes song and dance, but some specialized forms do incorporate song and dance.

1. affectation noun Artificial behavior adopted to impress others; pretense; a pose.
2. beneficiary noun a. A person who receives funds from an insurance policy or will upon another’s death. b. Anyone who receives help or advantage from something.
3. defect noun a. A flaw or imperfection. b. A deficiency. intrans. verb To depart one’s country or party in order to adopt or join another.
4. efficacy noun The power or capacity to produce the desired effect; effectiveness.
5. faction noun A group of persons forming a united but sometimes discontented and troublesome minority within a larger group.