Drama Unit Introductory Lecture

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Drama Unit Introductory Lecture

• Chapters 20-26 Cherie Dargan, Instructor

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Overview

• We will take a look at some of the literary terms
  well use to analyze the plays
• We will look at the history of drama, from the
  early days of the Greek theatre to modern theatre
• We will highlight how to write about drama
• We will briefly overview the chapters

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Part One Literary terms for Drama

• Drama Unit, Spring 2008

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Literary terms for Drama

• Ive broken these down into several categories
• Terms about types of dialogue
• Terms about the theater
• Terms about characters
• Two terms coming from the earliest Greek
  tradition
• Terms used to analyze the play
• Types of plays

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Two terms coming from the Greeks

• Both of these terms refer to common roles in
  Greek plays
• Messenger -- a familiar walk on role in many
  early plays, the messenger brought news of war,
  death, birth, and other news, and helped to move
  the story along
• Chorus -- a group of performers in early plays
  who chanted and danced
• We will see both of these in Antigone, as we
  sample that play.

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Terms about the theater

• Stage directions the playwrights written
  instructions included in the text of the play,
  with notes about setting, props, and appearance
  and movements of the actors
• Theater in the round a stage surrounded by the
  audience

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Terms about types of dialogue

• Aside a comment on the action of the play in
  which a character addresses the audience
• Dramatic monologue a poem presenting a long
  speech by one character addressed to another
  character
• Monologue -- a speech in which one character only
  is talking

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Terms about types of dialogue, cont.

• Idiom -- a special type of language used by the
  characters in a play (for example, a New York
  City accent or Texan drawl) 
• Wordplay -- refers to the witty verbal humor used
  in plays
• Pantomime -- theater that uses gestures without
  words

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Terms about characters

• Tragic flaws -- a fault in a character that was
  his or her undoing (examples are pride, greed,
  lust, jealousy)
• Humor characters -- a character who is dominated
  by one of the body fluids or humors (often
  referred to earth, fire, water and air)

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Terms about characters, cont.

• Stock characters -- these are the typical, or
  stereotypical characters such as the town drunk,
  the miser (what we might call a cheapskate), and
  the hypochondriac (someone who constantly thinks
  he or she has an illness and is popping pills or
  going to a new doctor, but isnt really sick)
• Metamorphosis -- a miraculous transformation of a
  character or situation

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Terms about characters, cont.

• Character portrait -- a way to analyze the
  characters in a play by compiling information
  about a specific character
• This is a basic technique used to gather
  information about a character before writing an
  essay about him or her.
• You would mark up the play and make notes of what
  he or she says and does, as well as put together
  a description of the person.

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Terms used to analyze the play

• Complication -- the circumstances in a play that
  set up problems
• In Antigone, a sister learns that while both her
  brothers have been killed in battle, only one is
  going to buried, because he is considered a hero,
  while his brother is considered a traitor. The
  King has declared that his body will not be given
  the usual burial rites anyone who breaks this
  law will die. She decides that she cannot obey
  the law.
• Exposition -- the details in a story that
  establishes the setting, including the main
  characters and themes

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Terms used to analyze the play, cont.

• Internal conflict -- conflict that takes place
  inside the character
• Hamlet struggles with his promise to avenge his
  fathers death, wanting to kill his uncle and
  angry with his mother for marrying the man who
  murdered her husband. He doesnt really want to
  deceive Ophelia, the woman he loves however, he
  acts as though he is crazy as part of his plan.
• Resolution -- the end of a story or play, when
  the conflict has been resolved (in some plays, it
  seems to be when most of the main characters are
  dead!)

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Terms used to analyze the play, cont.

• Dramatic irony -- this occurs when the audience
  is aware of something that is unknown to one or
  more characters
• Hamlet isnt really crazy! But Ophelia believes
  his act and ends up killing herself.
• Pathos -- a quality in literature that arouses
  sympathy, pity or feelings of tenderness in the
  audience
• We feel sorry for Minnie Wright (Trifles),
  living with so much silence on the farm

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Terms used to analyze the play, cont.

• Flashback -- refers to a scene in a story where
  the narrator takes us back in time  (a flash
  forward is the oppositewe go ahead in time,
  usually in a main characters imagination)
• Flashbacks are used in both short stories and
  plays. Sometimes they are done simply, by a
  character telling a story about something that
  happened long ago. Sometimes there is a note made
  (ten days earlier).

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Terms used to analyze the play, cont.

• Plot summary -- a technique to study a play by
  tracing the highlights of the plot
• This is another basic strategy for writing about
  a play.
• There are various ways to record the main points
  of the plot, from charts to a list.

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Types of plays

• Tragedies -- a type of play that focused on
  famous disasters
• Romantic comedies -- a combination of romance and
  comedy
• Tragicomedy -- a mixture of two genres, a play
  that is both sad and funny

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Types of plays, cont.

• Revenge tragedy -- a special type of tragedy that
  begins with the ghost of a murdered victim
  calling for revenge and finding a living person
  to carry out that revenge
• Hamlet is an example of the revenge tragedy
• Morality play -- a play that acts out the basic
  teachings of the church

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Part two An overview of the text

• Chapters 20-26

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Chapter 20

• Notice these pictures throughout the chapter
• Greek theater p. 1162
• Modern theater p. 1163
• The Globe theater p. 1164
• The Guthrie theater in MN 1165
• Theater in the round p. 1166
• Notice also Aristotles six elements of drama
• Action, character, theme, dialogue, staging
  including costumes, and musical accompaniment
  (1177). He thought action was most important.

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Trifles

• The play Trifles, p. 1166-1177
• Susan Glaspell is an important American
  playwright with Iowa roots. She was first
  considered a regional writer, with her use of
  dialogue, details and description that helps us
  imagine life on a farm in the early 1900s.
• We will read it out loud in a circle to gain a
  better understanding of it.

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Assignments for Trifles

• Read the play I will give you a worksheet to
  complete.
• You will turn in the worksheet for 25 points.
• Do the posting on Nicenet over your response to
  your classmates reading the play out loud.

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Chapter 21 Writing about Plays

• Different ways to write
• Reviews (full vs. brief) for print publications
  and the web
• Criticism an essay that appears in a general
  interest publication (the piece of Death of a
  Salesman in our text)
• Scholarly articles use sources to support a
  thesis about a work or its writer and appear in
  more academic journals

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Questions about Plays

• See pages 1225-6
• Several categories, including
• Perspective
• Language
• Setting
• Character
• Plot
• Links to other texts
• Response

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Websites and blogs

• Many Sunday newspapers contain reviews of local
  plays
• Some playwrights keep a blog three are listed.
• Internet Broadway Database
• http//www.ibdb.com
• Curtain Up
• http//www.curtainup.com

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Student writing about plays

• List of 8 ways you may be asked to write about
  drama we will focus on the journal entries and
  our essay exam.
• Suggestions for annotating, and summarizing a
  play
• Suggestions for personal journals
• How to write a personal response
• How to write an intervention when you add on to
  a story or play (write the next scene) in order
  to answer a question or add your own twist. We
  saw several examples in Poetry Unit.
• Guidelines for writing a critical analysis

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Chapter 22 Sophocles (Greek drama)

• He was one of four famous playwrights.
• Greek drama gives us several key components we
  still see used today
• The tragic hero with some of flaw or weakness
  that heads to his downfall
• The concept of hubris the overconfidence that
  leads to a person falling
• The debate do tragic heroes bring trouble upon
  themselves by their actions, or are they just the
  playthings of fate?

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Greek theatre

• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_theatre

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Antigone

• Play begins on page 1303
• We will watch 10-15 minutes of a video version
  done by the BBC (British) that sort of modernizes
  the story, with costumes that suggest the late
  1800s
• The play continues a story begun in an earlier
  play, about a man named Oedipus who accidentally
  marries his mother. Antigone is his daughter.
• The Play uses the messenger and the chorus

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Themes in Antigone

• The conflict between man made law (the King has
  declared.) and a higher law (decency, morality,
  humanitarian concepts)
• The destructiveness of war. Antigones two
  brothers die in a bloody civil war one is
  honored as a patriot and the other is considered
  a traitor.
• The stubbornness of the King in spite of his
  sons pleading for Antigones life and then
  realizing that his son was right.
• The idea that the children suffer for the
  parents sins or mistakes.

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Assignments for Antigone

• Read the play I will give you a worksheet to
  complete.
• You will turn in the worksheet for 25 points.
• Do the posting on Nicenet over your response to
  the play (after we view a sample of the video)

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Chapter 23 -- Shakespeare

• See the biographical information, 1333
• Pictures of the Globe theater, where his plays
  were performed, 1334-5
• Timeline of his life, 1335
• Controversy remains over his identity did the
  man from Stratford write all of his plays or was
  it really a nobleman writing in disguise?
• Two plays in this chapter. We will read Hamlet,
  p. 1442-1554.
• Revenge tragedy a common story. See 1443 for
  the list of characters.

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Themes in Hamlet

• Revenge
• Betrayal
• Death before ones time
• Unintended consequences
• Acting crazy or crazy?
• Father/son love, loyalty
• Murder

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Assignments for Hamlet

• Read the play I will give you a worksheet to
  complete.
• You will turn in the worksheet for 25 points.
• Do the posting on Nicenet over your response to
  the play
• I hope to show you at least part of the play on
  video, using Mel Gibsons version (1990)

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Movie versions of Hamlet

• http//www.imdb.com/title/tt0099726/
• Internet Movie Database entry for Hamlet
• http//www.imdb.com/title/tt0116477/
• Kenneth Branagh directed and played Hamlet, 1996
• http//www.imdb.com/title/tt0040416/
• Laurence Olivier played Hamlet, 1948
• http//www.imdb.com/title/tt0171359/
• Ethan Hawkes 2000 film puts the story into
  modern day New York

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Chapter 24 Modern Drama

• Text points out two important changes about 150
  years ago First, characters, scenes and costumes
  moved away from the rich and royal class to focus
  more on the middle class. Second, the language
  became more like that of the middle class.
• Drama also became more realistic, with stages and
  sets more true to life, as the text points out
  (1561) and with the characters speaking more to
  each other than delivering long, flowery
  monologues to the audience.

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Important playwrights

• Henrik Ibsen Norwegian (1828-1906)
• A Doll House (1879) one of his best known plays
  is about marriage
• Tennesee Williams American, (1911-1983)
• If we had more time, we would include his play,
  The Glass Menagerie (1945). His other works
  include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and A Streetcar
  Named Desire. The last two were made into very
  successful movies.

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Important playwrights, cont.

• Arthur Miller, American (1915-2005). Note the
  picture, p. 1671 with Marilyn Monroe. His plays
  include Death of a Salesman, and The
  Crucible.
• He is also described as following Ibsen's
  realistic tradition (1670)
• Miller was one of the writers to appear before
  Senator Joseph McCarthys infamous committee
  during 1956 they wanted him to name people who
  were communists. Miller refused. Another famous
  writer, and his friend, John Steinbeck, wrote a
  letter of support part of that appears on page
  1741.

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Chapter 25 Sweet Home Chicago

• Traces the roots of the Chicago Renaissance in
  the 1930s through the 1960s.
• Reflected a migration from the south to the
  cities of the North, including Chicago.
• The black South Side of Chicago-or
  Bronzeville, as it was popularly knownwas a
  blend of southern black culture, both rural and
  urban (1743)
• Life was a struggle it was hard to get jobs and
  housing and racism was still a part of society in
  the North

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Themes of the Chicago Renaissance

• Theme include the following (See 1744-5)
• Home
• Travel
• The struggle to survive
• Getting ahead
• Religion
• Having a good time
• Music
• Serving time
• Love

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Timeline and key people

• See pages 1745-7 for an extensive timeline that
  highlights key events and people
• This section also cites key people, such as St.
  Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton whose book about
  the life of blacks in Chicago (1945) was praised
  as a rich, detailed description of life.
• Section also includes some poetry (1755-1777) and
  short stories (1777-1790)
• Finally, it includes the play, A Raisin in the
  Sun, which we will be reading. (1790-1854).

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A Raisin in the Sun

• Notice the biographical information about
  Lorraine Hansberry, page 1790.
• She grew up in Chicago her family entertained
  people like Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Martin
  Luther King, Jr. and Harry Belafonte.
• Where does the title come from? Why does it sound
  so familiar?

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A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes

• What happens to a dream deferred?
• Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or
  fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it
  stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar
  over-- like a syrupy sweet?
• Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
• Or does it explode?
• http//www.cswnet.com/menamc/langston.htm

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Themes

• The great American dream home ownership
• The struggles of African American families in the
  big cities of the north (jobs and housing), still
  facing racism
• The need for hope that things will get better
• The value of familybut the unavoidable conflicts
  that arise in any family
• What else do you see?

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Assignments for A Raisin in the Sun

• Read the play I will give you a worksheet to
  complete.
• You will turn in the worksheet for 25 points.
• Do the posting on Nicenet over your response to
  reading the play.

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Chapter 26 Contemporary theater

• See pages 1858-1861 for a brief look at the
  changes over the past few decades.
• Directors tried to break with tradition three
  ways
• They push the boundaries actors took off their
  clothes. Plays took on taboo topics.
• They go for designer theaterlavish sets,
  costumes, lighting, and special effects
• They break through the fourth wall (the invisible
  wall between the actors and the audience)
  action spills beyond the stage. Actors may run
  down the aisles or involve the audience in some
  way.

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Important playwrights

• Samuel Beckett, 1906-1989
• Known as one of the people involved with the
  theater of the absurd movement. He uses
  minimalism. However, many find him hard to
  understand.
• August Wilson, 1945-2005. One of his better known
  plays is The Piano Lesson.
• Not in the text David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly

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Women playwrights

• Wendy Wasserstein
• http//www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/f_
  aids/women_playwrights/w_wasserstein.shtml
• Two of her plays include
• Boy Meets Girl
• The Heidi Chronicles