Download What is a Play? - Theatre201-SP14-Saxton

What is a Play?
-The basic unit of the theatre.
-Though other live performances may be theatrical* and take place
on a stage, plays and the theatre are explicitly and solely meant
for each other.
-A play is not a thing but an event.
-A play is the combination of text and performance.
-Though play scripts are considered a branch of literature it is
incomplete unless performed live; the written text is merely the
repeatable part of the performance.
-Plays don’t just reproduce live action, but frame that action
around a particular conflict that lends the action meaning and
significance.
-Without conflict there is not drama.
-A play offers themes, ideas, and revelations.
-A play explores the glories, failures, and mysterious of human life
through intense impersonation and structured dramatic action.
Classifying Plays
-No matter how original or unique a play can be classified by
duration and genre.
Duration
-Historically, in Western drama, a “full-length” play has usually lasted between two
and three hours.
-roughly the hours between dinner and bed time
-Broadway and off-Broadway plays average just under two hours in 2009
-One act plays- usually an hour or less
-extremely long plays
-traditional productions in Asia; could last all day
-in the west, recently eight or nine hour plays have become popular
-10 minute plays
Classifying Plays
-No matter how original or unique a play can be classified by
duration and genre.
Genre
-What “kind” of play it is.
- Why classify? Mainly because knowing what kind of play it is lets
people know whether or not they want to see it or read it.
-The classification of plays into genre is not a science, but a matter
of opinion.
-Historically plays defined as tragedy and comedy.
Classifying Plays
Tragedy
-profoundly serious play
-Always ends in the death of one or more of its main characters.
-Focuses on a universal theme about the nature of human life and society.
-In most tragedies, the protagonist is a person of high rank and stature.
-Protagonist- “carrier of the action”; the character who faces
conflict, has a revelation, is changed the most
Antagonist- “opposer of the action” the character or force that
either causes conflict for the protagonist or aides the conflict
-protagonist undergoes decline of fortune; usually ends with death
-struggle, tragic flaw, self-recognition, catharsis are central to tragedy
-describes a bold aggressive, heroic attack against huge, perhaps
insurmountable, odds.
-Tragic protagonists always goes up against superhuman antagonists.
Classifying Plays
Comedy
-staple of the theatre since ancient times
-can have serious themes
-can be dark humor
-may have no other purpose than to create continuous
hilarity
-because they are topical and about ordinary life they
usually don’t last like tragedies
-rarely probe as deeply into humanity so offer less
fertile ground for academic scholarship
-Some comedies are considered true masterpieces of
human observation.
Classifying Plays
-Other genres do not have true definition and can be shaped
and formed.
-the history play
-about historical events and figures
-although based on history dialogue and events can be
invented
-documentary drama
-makes use of actual documents- court records or
transcribed interviews (the Nixon tapes)
-tragicomedy
-blends tragedy and comedy
-plays have serious themes
-leaves hero alive
Classifying Plays
-melodrama
-popular in the 19th century
-Outwardly serious drama embellished with spectacular stagings and
flamboyant dialogue.
-highly suspenseful, contrived plotting
-simple confrontation between good and evil, rather than complex
study of human life
-today they are mainly staged as parodies of their originals for
laughs
-musical
-major genre
-most commercially successful in U.S. today
-singing, acting, and dancing together
-genres can be created and combined
-every play is unique and any grouping in a genre is a convenience for
comparisons and analysis
Dramaturgy
-A play is not just random action gathered it is patterned action, or
dramatic action.
-It has clearly identifiable components and a specified beginning and end.
(Can be analyzed)
-Tends to be crafted in well-understood patterns and compositional
structure.
-This structure is dramaturgy.
-Dramaturgy is the construction of drama and dramatic performance;
-Dramaturgy provides momentum and meaning so that a plays action
becomes increasingly compelling and significant.
-Dramaturgy in practice is a comprehensive exploration of the context in
which the play resides. The dramaturg is the resident expert on the
physical, social, political, and economic milieus in which the action takes
place, the psychological underpinnings of the characters, the various
metaphorical expressions in the play of thematic concerns; as well as on the
technical consideration of the play as a piece of writing: structure, rhythm,
flow, even individual word choices.
Dramaturgy
Dramaturgy can be thought of as two intersecting axes where the play’s
various components can be identified (vertical) and the temporal structure
(horizontal) of the performance-the order and timing of what happens- can
be examined.
Vertical Axis: components of drama (Aristotle’s Poetics)
-Plot
-Characters
-Theme
-Diction
-Music
-Spectacle
-conventions*
(Aristotle’s original components of tragedy still work for modern drama)
-These are the raw materials for dramatic performance
-balancing these is the job of the director
Vertical Axis
Plot
-is not synonymous with story
-Story is the narrative of what happens in the play. Plot refers
to the mechanics of storytelling; characters, order of
revelations, discoveries, and action that takes place on stage.
-structure of actions, outer and inner
-primary demands of plot are logic and suspense
-actions portrayed must be plausible
-events must follow in an organic rather that arbitrary fashion
-actions must set up expectations for future actions
Vertical Axis
Characters
-the human figures who undertake the actions of the plot
-potency is measured by audience’s interest in them as people
-fundamental action of characters is to make audience care
-whole images, completely human, with attributes, feelings,
and expectations of real people
-audience needs to be able to sympathize
-Characters depth is essential to a good play
-allow the audience to feel the multitude of emotions that are
necessary for successful theatre
Vertical Axis
Theme
-The play’s abstracted intellectual content.
-The play’s overall statement: its topic, central idea, or
message.
-A play’s theme may not be apparent and may only be found
after several readings/ viewings.
-some themes are obvious
-plays can have more than one theme
-themes do not have to be straight forward
-themes of plays address the central questions of society and
humanity
-Most successful plays have themes that are not direct
messages, but are sufficiently narrowed and limited to give the
audience an insight into the playwright’s thoughts.
Vertical Axis
Diction (Language)
-Relates not merely to pronunciation, but the play’s literary
character.
-the play’s language
-playwright’s use of literary forms such as verse, rhyme,
metaphor, apostrophe, jest, epigram
-early plays were verse (poetry)
-verse is rare now but plays still have carefully crafted
language
- can be realistic, naturalistic, poetry, other
-is not the playwright’s creation alone
-directors and actors are part of the process
Vertical Axis
Music
-Early Greek plays were sung and chanted not spoken.
-“music” can take many forms
-songs written in scripts
-sometimes sung by characters. Heard on radios etc,
sometimes heard off stage
-sound score (live and pre-recorded)
-incidental music between scenes or soundscape that
intensifies audiences experience
-sound effects can be made into orchestrated sound scape
Vertical Axis
Convention
-not an original Aristotelian component
-Convention is an agreement between audience and performers
by which the audience willingly suspends its disbelief and accepts
the play as a new temporary “reality.”
-A set of rules, which both the audience and actors are familiar
with and which act as a useful way of quickly signifying the
nature of the action or of a character.
-an action that signifies other action
-can be specific to show or generally recognized in theatre
-audience accepts conventions
-allows for quick communication of repeating ideas and elaborate
actions
-different theatre traditions and eras have different conventions
The Horizontal Axis:
Drama’s timeline
-refers to the events contained in the script
and the three time periods of performance;
pre-play, play, post-play
Horizontal Axis
Preplay
-attraction of audience
-different types of publicity have been used
-parades
-flags
-lighted marquees
-posters
-newspapers
-television commercials
-websites
-Pre show
-curtain may be down or stage may be “set”
-preshow music may also set mood
-house lights are always on for preshow in the theatre- encourages
audience to notice each other
Horizontal Axis
Play
-drama has an identifiable beginning, middle, and end
-conventional plays have a very common sequence
-exposition
-(rising action)
-conflict
-climax
-denouement (falling action)
Horizontal Axis
Exposition
-tells the audience what happened before the play began through the character’s
dialogue
-gives background information that the audience must have to understand the
action of the play
-non-realistic plays may have a prologue (direct presentation of what happened
before the play)
- can also be done with program notes, projections, slides, etc.
-usually exposition is in beginning of play, though occasionally it can last throughout
the play
Horizontal Axis
Conflict
- along with confrontation, the mechanism by which action becomes dramatic
-plot can hold suspense only when it offers alternatives and choices (Macbeth)
-conflict is made up of actions and inactions
-character’s decisions must proceed from powerfully conflicting alternatives to
create conflict
-conflict may be between characters as well as within them
-can be one central situation, or may evolve out of many
-allows audience to see deeply into human personality- seeing how the character
works leads to caring
-theme of a play is usually abstracted from the conflict
-The playwright introduces conflict early in a play, often by means of and “inciting
incident,” in which one character poses a conflict or confrontation either to another
character or to himself.
-once established conflict is intensified to crisis
-series of incidents
-investigations
-revelations
-confrontations
-nonevents
Horizontal Axis
Climax
- along with confrontation, the mechanism by which action becomes dramatic
-When conflict becomes unsupportable something has to give.
- All plays culminate in dramatic explosion (climax).
- Aristotle considered climax as a catharsis- release of the audience’s pity thereby
permitting the fullest experience of tragic pleasure.
-conflict taken to its extreme
-moment of maximum tension
-some sort of change is mandated
-Contain elements of recognition and reversal if not of catharsis, and usually the
major conflicts of a play are resolved by one or more of these elements.
Horizontal Axis
Denouement
-follows the climax
-is the resolution of the play
-can be a lengthy or simply a sentence, a word, even a gesture
-indicates that the passions aroused by the play’s action are stilled
-a new harmony or understanding has been reached
-must provide some clarity to the problems raised in the play
-provides a vision or metaphor of a deeper more permanent understanding
Horizontal Axis
Postplay
-curtain call
-last staged element of a performance
-not just a time for actors to be congratulated
-time for actors to show respect for audience
-allows audience to dwell in the “paradox of the actor”
-liberates the audience form the world of the play
-ends the agreement of the willing suspension of disbelief
-dramatic criticism
-After the performance the production lives on in conversations (formal and
informal), studies, discussions, reviews, etc.
-combines analysis and evaluation- is everyone’s job
Horizontal Axis
Non-Aristotelian theatre events
-Aristotle’s influence is still very present and forceful today. However there
are components, patterns, and dramatic structure that he did not include.
-some plays explicitly reject Aristotelian forms
-new and revolutionary dramatic structures
-undermining the differentiation of the real and fictional worlds
-interrupting the plotted actions with didactic songs and speeches
-nonsensical dialogue
-presenting scenes in reverse chronological order (ending with the
exposition)
-Aristotelian structure is often mocked in the theatre.
-a search for novelty-something different and fresh
-environmental theatre (inviting audiences to walk around and in the
dramatic action, allowing them to choose their own plots and how they
unfold.)
Horizontal Axis
However:
-Aristotle’s principles still dominate theatre
-nothing remains novel for very long
-mere astonishment cannot sustain interest for the length of a normal
performance
-without plot, characters, and a complexity of ideas, human relationships
audiences will struggle to invest in the performance
-the dramatic structure described by Aristotle evolved from early drama and
was not his invention
-contemporary experiments are not likely to undue centuries of working
classic models
-most experimental drama retains the essential core of Aristotle’s elements.