Drama

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Drama

• Refresher Course 2007
• Aurora Reid

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Features of Drama Texts

• Narrative
• Structure
• Characterisation
• Stage Directions and performance
• Language
• Irony
• Imagery
• Source Beardwood, Robert and Macdonell, Kate,
  Insight Literature for Senior Students, Insight,
  Elsternwick, Vic, 2006

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Narrative Technique
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• The playwright relies upon
• Dialogue
• Moving characters from front to rear of stage to
  focus upon particular people
• Using exits and entries
• Other techniques such as soliloquies or asides to
  let the audience into the mind of the character
• Source Beardwood, Robert and Macdonell, Kate,
  Insight Literature for Senior Students, Insight,
  Elsternwick, Vic, 2006

5

• Soliloquies
• As there is no narrative voice in a play we are
  less able to see into the mind of the character.
  Soliloquies are spoken by the character so that
  the playwright can let us into the characters
  inner most thoughts and feelings.

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Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2

• What does Shakespeare enable us to discover about
  Hamlets despair?
• What are we allowed to discover in this soliloquy
  about Hamlets plans?
• Why is it important that the playwright reveal
  this information to us?

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• Asides
• Character speaks directly to the audience,
  usually briefly
• LORD POLONIUS Indeed, that is out o' the
  air.AsideHow pregnant sometimes his
  Hamlets replies are! a happiness that often
  madness hits on, which reason and sanity could
  not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave
  him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting
  between him and my daughter

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Structure
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Traditional narrative shape

• Tragedy
• Action rises to the climax, then falls
• Tragic hero is at first well-liked
• Hero errs and falls, ultimately dies
• Source Beardwood, Robert and Macdonell, Kate,
  Insight Literature for Senior Students, Insight,
  Elsternwick, Vic, 2006

• Comedy
• Problem occurs in otherwise happy circumstances
• Misunderstandings or conflict lead to separation
• Confusion ends relationships restored

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Characterisation
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Character groupings

• Enables the playwright to indicate relationships
  between characters and to expose aspects of their
  personality

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Influence

• Act 1 Scene 2
• In the first scene of the play Ziggy, the
  protagonist, is introduced. Why does Williamson
  place the scene you have just read, second?
• What does Williamson enables us to learn about
  the characters in this scene through their
  interactions with each other?

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Stage directions
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• Usually written in italics
• Shakespeare used very few stage directions.
  Modern playwrights tend to provide more details.
• Reveal
• Physical layout of stage inc sound, lighting
• Presentation and performance by the actors to
  bring their characters to life

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Making comparisons

• Stage directions from Hamlet
• ACT II SCENE I. A room in POLONIUS' house.
• Compare this with the information given in the
  extract from Influence. What do you learn from
  Williamsons stage directions about the home, the
  characters personalities and the movement of
  characters?

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Symbolism

• Stage directions can indicate symbolic
  connections. Shakespeare made use of this
  technique frequently
• Macbeth
• ACT III SCENE V A Heath.  Thunder. Enter the
  three Witches meeting HECATE
• What does the weather symbolise?

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Language
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• Develop characterisation
• Moves the plot forward
• Conveys intimacy, distance, tension etc,in
  relationships
• Expresses the main ideas and concepts circulating
  in the play
• Contains the main images that link various
  characters and parts of the play in a coherent
  whole
• Source Insight Literature for Senior Students

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Williamsons use of language

• Well known for capturing the Australian
  vernacular
• Vivienne Its dead boring.
• Ziggy great big whoppers
• Carl youve got the guts to tell it like it is
• He also acknowledges the power of words
• Zehra Words mean one thing then suddenly
  another
• Act 1 Scene 5

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Shakespeares use of language

• SCENE I. A room in the castle.
• CLAUDIUS And can you, by no drift of
  circumstance,Get from him why he puts on this
  confusion,Grating so harshly all his days of
  quietWith turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
• ROSENCRANTZ He does confess he feels himself
  distractedBut from what cause he will by no
  means speak.
• GUILDENSTERN Nor do we find him forward to be
  sounded,But, with a crafty madness, keeps
  aloof,When we would bring him on to some
  confessionOf his true state.

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Irony
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• Dramatic irony
• The audience and perhaps one or two other
  characters knows more than the other characters.
  Dramatic effect is increased by the playwright.
• Verbal irony
• Discrepancy between what someone says and what
  he/she really means.
• Eg when Hamlet tells Claudius "I am too much in
  the sun"
• Situational irony
• Discrepancy between would be expected to happen
  and what actually occurs.

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Imagery
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• Playwrights use imagery to portray characters in
  a positive or negative light.
• Repeated images can draw attention to the central
  ideas of the text.
• Eg Repetitious reference to poison in
  Shakespeares Hamlet