What is a Drama

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What is a Drama?

• How Does Drama Differ from Fiction?

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The Dramatists Goal is The Willing
Suspension of Disbelief. How is this achieved?

• Convincing sets and props, which allow the
  audience to believe they are immersed in the time
  and place the play features.
• Realistic Dialogue ( verbal and physical) this
  is how you show in the place of telling
• Action that keeps the audiences attention

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What Other Tools Does a Dramatist Use to
Keep an Audiences Attention?

• Conflict, Complications, and Plot Twists
• Surprise
• Ambiguity (character and situational) forces
  participation

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Narrative vs. Dramatic
Differences
Between Plays and Other forms of Writing 1.
Stories describe what people do, while plays show
what people do. 2. Action is the main
ingredient of a play, and dialogue is considered
action in plays. 3. Unity of Time Time is much
more elastic in fiction. A play deals with one or
several units of time and gives the effect of
real time passing. 4. Unity of Place the
setting is more restricted in plays. Fiction can
feature many settings, but a play should be
restricted to only several at most. 5. Fiction
is complete when written, while a plays script
is only a blueprint for the final product.

• Telling
• Setting is Imagined or Described
• Emphasis is multi-faceted
• Action is Described Participation evaluating
  the perspective of the person sharing the
  information

• Showing
• Setting is Illustrated
• Emphasis is on Dialogue, as action, which
  includes physical dialogue and silences.
• Action in Real Time Participation figuring out
  who is dissembling

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The Six Main Elements of Drama Plot,
Character, Thought, Music, Diction, Spectacle
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I. Plot

• The actions that stem from conflicts and feature
  character exchanges and choices. In a dramatic
  work, each character advances the plot in some
  way.

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II. CharacterDramatic Works Emphasize specific
things about the main characters

• Their desires
• How they react to obstacles
• What other characters think about them, and how
  they relate to them
• Just enough about their past to hint at the
  aforementioned
• Their appearance is generally revealed rather
  than described. However, characters may
  describe one another when their perception is
  vital to the plot. For example, in Shakespeares
  Othello, the title character is often attacked
  for his ethnicity. In Act One, before we even
  meet Othello, we learn a "Moor," or "his
  Moorship" or "thick lips (1.1.66)" is the subject
  of the tragedy. Iago and Roderigo demean him by
  referring to him as a "black ram (1.1.88) and a
  "Barbary horse (1.1.111-112). Othello's
  blackness is a central theme of the play, so it
  is emphasized by the other characters.l

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III. Dialogue

• In plays, dialogue is not idle conversation.
  Dramatic dialogue should only be included if it
  advances the plot, develops characterization, or
  both.
• Definition William Packard defined dialogue as
  "the rapid back and forth exchange that takes
  place between onstage characters" and noted that
  hat "good dramatic dialogue always advances the
  major actions of the play ( qtd. in Lynch)
• Conventions of Dramatic Dialogue
• It is natural, ex most people seldom speak in
  whole sentences.
• Each character speaks in unique patterns, with
  individualized vocabulary patterns and subjects
  of interest.
• As Carol Korty once noted, the "words of the
  whole play are like a piece of music- they create
  sounds, rhythms, tones that are heard and
  physically felt. They also create images. In this
  way, dialogue is also poetry, whether or not it
  rhymes or has a definite meter (Qtd. in Lynch)

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Dialogue Part II Monologues

• Definition
• --A monologue is a type of dialogue in which one
  character offers an extended speech. When it is
  directed toward someone or something off stage,
  it is called a soliloquy.
• Benefits
• --Monologues offer a means of presenting
  background material, on what has occurred in the
  past, or what will occur in the future.
• --In monologues, characters also reveal their
  hidden emotional states, dreams, wishes,
  problems, fears, conflicts, and feelings about
  other characters.

YouTube - Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1
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• Adapted from
• Lynch, Dory. Drama Overview. Fall, 2003. 1 Oct.
  2008. www.bloomington.in.us/dory/creativegt.