Theatre Appreciation Notes

TA – 20 – Drama Basics

What is Drama?
A collaborative art that represents events & situations, either realistic or symbolic, that we witness happening through the actions of actors in a play on a stage in front of a live audience.

Aristotle’s Poetics
The earliest-surviving work or dramatic theory & the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory.

Aristotle offers an account of what he calls “poetry”.

Aristotle’s Six Elements of Drama (335 B.C.E.)

1. Plot – the story line or arrangement of the action. 2. Character – a presentation of a figure whose actions & psychology are apparent to the audience. 3. Diction – the language of the drama, which should be appropriate to the action. 4. Thought – the ideas that underlie the plot & action of the drama, expressed in terms of dialogue & soliloquy. We may think of it as part of the subject matter of the play. 5. Spectacle – the places of the action, the costumes, the set designs, & visual elements of the play. 6. Music – in Greek drama, the dialogue & chorus were sung or chanted, & the music was of considerable emotional importance. In modern live drama, music is rarely used in serious plays.

Central Figures of the Drama

Protagonist – (the hero) – according to Aristotle, he quests for truth. He has a flaw in character (hamartia). The moment of truth – the climax – is called “recognition.” The protagonist in a Greek tragedy, ironically, brings his misfortune on himself.

Antagonist – (the villain) – a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend.

Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.E.) – Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, & the Eumenides.
Sophocies (496-406 B.C.E.) – Oedipus Rex, Antigone, & Oedipus at Colonus.
Euripedes (448-385 B.C.E.) – Andromache, Medea, & the Trojan Women.

According to Aristotle, Tragedy arouses pity & fear & by doing so produces in us a catharsis, which is a purging of those emotions. The drama helps us understand the complexities of human nature & the power of our inescapable destinies.

Tragos – goat / Ode – Song – intended to teach religious lessons & is a form of ritual purification.

Communication in the Drama

Dialogue – the exchange of conversation among characters, where by the primary dramatic interchanges are achieved.

Soliloquy – a character, speaking to himself.
In Greek tragedies, some of the function of the modern soliloquy was taken by the chorus, a group of citizens who frequently commented in philosophic fashion on the action of drama.

Imitation and Realism

No matter how realistically events are portrayed onstage, they cannot duplicate the actions we experience in our ordinary lives outside the theater. Audiences are called upon to exercise a “willing suspension of disbelief” – we must agree to imagine that the events onstage are actually occurring in ancient Greece, or Denmark, even though we are simultaneously aware that we are seated in a theater in our own hometown in the twenty-first century.

Alternative Theory of Tragedy

G.W.F. Hegel (19th century German philosopher) – “It is not the tragic flaw of a protagonist that leads to the tragic. Rather, all of us inhabit a world where one’s good intentions inevitably collide with the good intentions of someone else. Our world being finite, we cannot avoid these collisions Thus the tragic is our fate.” Tragedy, according to Hegel, reveals our sorrows & sufferings as inevitable.

Comedy: Old & New

Performed at a time associated with wine making.
Linked with the wine god Baccihus & his relative Comus – from whom the word “comedy” comes.

Some of the earliest comedies were phallic in nature, were raucous & course & involved personal & political satire.

New Comedy – After the Macedonian conquest, Greek writers of comedy lacked complete political independence, & moved towards safer, more mundane subject matter. They found their inspiration in the daily life of Athens.

Menander (341-289 B.C.E.) – Characters spoke in the contemporary dialect & concerned themselves with the everyday ffairs of the people o Athens. (The Flatterer, The Lady from Andros, The Suspicious Man, & the Grouch)
Tragicomedy – A mixing of Tragedy & Comedy. It does not usually end with the finality of death or the promise of a new beginning. It usually ends somewhere in between. Tragicomedy tends to reveal the ambiguities of the world.

Literary Elements (What is needed to write a script or story?) * Script * Plot * Character * Story Organization * Setting * Dialogue * Monologue * Conflict
Technical Elements (What is needed to produce a play?) * Scenery * Costumes * Props * Sound & Music * Make-up
Performance Elements (What do the actors do on stage to make a character come alive?) * Acting * Speaking * Non-verbal Expression

All the elements of drama combine to make a good production. They are all important. Some demonstrate more of one element than others.

Dramatic Structure In his Poetics the Greek philosopher Aristotle put forth the idea that “A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end”.

Roman drama critic Horace advocated a 5-act structure in his Ars Poetica:

“A play should not be shorter or longer than five acts”

In 1863 German playwright & novelist Gustav Freytag wrote Die Technik de Dramas.

Exposition
Provides the background information needed to properly understand the story.

During rising action, the basic internal conflict is complicated by the introduction of related secondary conflicts.

The third act is that of the climax, or turning point, which marks a change, for the better or the worse, in the protagonist’s affairs.

During the falling action, or resolution, which is the moment of reversal after the climax, the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels.

Denouement
Events between the falling action & the actual end of the drama or narrative & thus serves as the conclusion of the story.