Download DRAMATIC GENRES Tragedy—Classical Greek Deals with the

DRAMATIC GENRES
Tragedy—Classical Greek
Deals with the reversal in fortune and eventual
downfall of a royal figure
Simple Tragedy
Protagonist never realizes what causes downfall
Complex Tragedy
Has a scene of recognition in which protagonist
realizes what caused downfall
Tragedy—Italian Renaissance
Deals with royalty, must end calamitously
Comedy—Italian Renaissance
Deals with common people, must end happily
Tragicomedy
In the Renaissance, these plays had tragic themes
and noble characters yet ended happily. In modern
times this type combines serious and comic
elements. Many plays of this type involve comic or
ironic treatment of a serious theme.
Burletta
An 18th C. English dramatic form resembling comic
opera and defined by the Lord Chamberlain as a
play with no more than three acts, each of which
had to include at least five songs. Many classic
plays were turned into this form.
Drame Bourgeois
Any serious play that did not fit neoclassic definition
of tragedy
(Deals with royalty, must end
unhappily, no mixing of tragic
and comic elements)
Dealt with problems of ordinary middle-class
people seriously
Offered moral & philosophical conclusions
Allowed for mixing of serious & comic
elements
Domestic Tragedy
Focused on domestic problems of middle class
characters
Dramatized middle-class morality
Evil punished, good rewarded—different
from Restoration comedies
Tended to be sentimental, melodramatic
Last-minute conversions of evil-doers
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Ballad Opera
Originated in England
Parodied Italian opera
No recitative or sung dialogue
Spoken dialogue alternated with songs set to
popular contemporary melodies
Characters drawn from lower classes
Often were social & political satires
Comedy of Manners
Form of comic drama that became popular in the
later half of the 17th C. in France and among
English playwrights during the Restoration. It
emphasizes a cultivated or sophisticated
atmosphere, witty dialogue, and characters whose
concern with social polish and reputation is
charming, ridiculous, or both.
Sentimental Comedy
Satirizes social conventions & norms—like
Restoration comedies
Stock character types with descriptive
names—like Restoration comedies
“Marplot”
Wicked punished, virtuous rewarded—unlike
Restoration comedies
Laughing Comedy
Should make audiences laugh at own eccentricities
& absurdities
Modification of sentimental comedy
Oliver Goldsmith wrote She Stoops to Conquer—
see some of Jane Austen in this play
Sturm und Drang/Storm and Stress
An anti-neoclassical movement in 18th C. Germany
which was a forerunner of romanticism. These
playwrights felt there were no rules, favored
episodic plots, and atmosphere was more important
than plot.
Melodrama
Historically, a distinct form of drama popular
throughout the 19th C. which emphasized action,
suspense, and spectacular effects; music was used
to heighten the dramatic mood. It used stock
characters and clearly defined villains and heroes,
and it presented unambiguous confrontations
between good and evil.
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Minstrel Show
A type of entertainment where the performers wore
blackface, consisting of comic and sentimental
songs, dramatic and farcical skits, jugs and shuffle
dances, and a peppering of dialect jokes.
Vaudeville
Collection of entertainments: songs, dances,
acrobatics, animal acts, specialty acts, and
dramatic readings.
Burlesque
Parodies of serious plays like those of Shakespeare
and popular melodrama. Descendant of satyr
plays.
Well-made play
Type of play popular in the 19th and early 20th
centuries which combined apparent plausibility of
incident and surface realism with a tightly
constructed and contrived plot. Think of the deus
ex machina.
Romantic drama
Influenced by German “sturm und drang”. Did not
believe in purity of genre; all subject matter was
appropriate for the stage; often used supernatural
elements; romantic hero often a social outcast;
excellent mirror of the revolutionary eras in America
and France
Realism
A style of drama tat attempts to present onstage
people and events corresponding to those
observable in everyday life.
Naturalism
An extreme form of realism that attempts to capture
the truth of a documentary. Drama should look for
the “disease” in society and expose the “infection”.
Symbolism
In drama, a movement of the late 19th and 20th
centuries which sought to replace realistic
representations of life with the expression of inner
truth. This form used myths and symbols in an
attempt to reach beyond everyday reality.
Abstract Theatre
Favors illusionistic and openly theatrical techniques
and devices. Uses dream sequences, fantasy,
poetry, ghosts and spirits.
Illogical stage pictures rooted in subconscious
or dream world
An extension of symbolism
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Theatricalism
Style of production and playwrighting that frankly
admits the artifice of the stage and borrows freely
from the circus, the music hall, and similar
entertainments.
Expressionism
A form of drama characterized by an attempt to
depict subjective states through distortion; striking,
often grotesque images; and lyric, unrealistic
dialogue.
Surrealism
Movement attacking formalism in the arts which
developed in Europe after WWI. This form of
drama replaced realistic action with the strange
logic of dreams.
Theatre of cruelty
A concept of theatre based on magic and ritual
which would liberate deep, violent, erotic impulses.
It wanted to overwhelm the audience’s senses.
Epic Theatre
A form of drama aimed at the intellect rather than
the emotions. It seeks to present evidence
regarding social questions in such a way that they
may be considered objectively and an intelligent
conclusion may be reached.
Futurists
Celebrated machines, technology, and war.
Dada
Movement based on the deliberate presentation of
the irrational and on attacks against traditional
artistic values.
Existentialism
There are no fixed standards or values, each
individual must create his or her own code of
conduct.
Absurd
Rational language is debased and replaced by
clichés and trite or irrelevant remarks. Realistic
psychological motivation is replaced by automatic
behavior which is often absurdly inappropriate to
the situation.
Comedy of Menace
A form of drama that frightens and entertains at the
same time.
Selective realism
The use of only details to suggest specific locales
and to reinforce characterization of dramatic action.
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Environmental theatre
A type of theatre production in which the total
theatre environment—the stage space and the
audience arrangement—is emphasized. Among its
aims are elimination of the distinction between
audience space and acting space, a more flexible
approach to interactions between performers and
audience, and substitution of a multiple focus for
the traditional single focus.
Eclectics
Work in a variety of modes as believe play requires;
does not identify with one particular artistic
movement.
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