Drama

What is drama?

• Drama is a literary composition involving conflict, action crisis and atmosphere designed to be acted by players on a stage before an audience.

• Can be a motion picture drama (movie) or a traditional stage drama (stage play).

Drama

• Drama can be fiction or nonfiction.

• Some examples of drama include skits and plays.

• Written in a way that tells the reader how the stage should look and how the actors should speak and act.

Willy [with casual irritation]: I said nothing happened. Didn’t you hear me?

Linda: Don’t you feel well?

Willy: I’m tired to the death. [The flute has faded away. He sits on the bed beside her, a little numb.] I couldn’t make it. I just couldn’t make it, Linda.

Linda: [very carefully, delicately]: Where were you all day? You look terrible.

Types of Drama

Comedy - refers to any play which consistentlyfeatures humor and light-hearted events.

Tragedy - deals with humans as victims of destiny, character flaw, moral weakness, or social pressure.

Elements of Drama• Cast – list of characters

• Dialogue – spoken word of the characters

• Soliloquy – narrative spoken by a single actor in which his or her thoughts are revealed to the audience

• Dramatic Monologue – Similar to soliloquy, a dramatic monologue is a long speech by a single actor

Elements of Drama• Character Foil – A character foil is a character whose

traits are in direct contrast to those of the principal character

• Scene Design – Creative process of developing costumes, lighting, sets, and makeup

• Aside – a speech or comment made by an actor directly to the audience about the action of the play or another character. The audience is to understand that this comment is not heard or noticed by the other characters in the play http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ktm7IGr0

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Elements of Drama

• Stage Directions – tell actors how to move and speak. Most stage directions are in parentheses ( ) or in italics. They can also tell you where the play is taking place or give information about how to make the stage look to set the scene.

• Prop – an article or object that appears on the stage during a play.

Irony in Drama• Situational Irony –occurs when a reader or

character expects one thing to happen, but something entirely different happens. In other words, it is when something unexpected (or inappropriate) happens.

• Dramatic Irony –the contrast between what a character thinks to be true and what we (the readers) know to be true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M11paBHrFxY

Irony in Drama

• Verbal Irony –when someone says one thing but means something different. This type of irony is very similar to sarcasm.

• Historical Irony – Irony throughout history. It is most easily identified when we compare the way historical figures saw the world and the way we see it today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD8_XO29_oA

Theme• Theme- The subject of a talk, a piece of

writing, a person's thoughts, or an exhibition; a topic: "the theme of the sermon was reverence".

• Theme is the meaning released by the work when we take all aspects of the work in its entirety into account.

• It is an aspect of human experience that the author wishes to express.

Beginning / Exposition

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Climax

Falling ActionEnd/ Resolution