About Drama

The Study of Plays

Drama: It is the art or practice of writing or producing dramatic works.

Playwrights: They are the people who write the plays. [Just like Authors write stories.]

Actors: They are the characters in the play.

Performance:  Is the show itself.

Interpretation: Is the understanding or explaining of the play. This varies depending on the reader.

Plot Structure depends on:

1-     Exposition: the introduction, or the beginning.

2-     Rising Action: it is the events that build up, or lead to more excitement or interesting situations.

3-     Climax / Turning point

4-      Falling Action: the decreasing events that often leads to a conclusion or a solution. 

5-      Conclusion: the end of the play. No events follow, and often it is a solution to the climax, yet that is not always so.

Acts: It is short form of the word “Action.” These are divisions of plays due to time. In other words, the play is not measured in chapters and paragraphs, like a story is; quite differently, it is measured in Acts. An Act probably takes place in one area.

 Scenes: these are sub-divisions of Acts.

 The Globe: that was Shakespeare’s stage. It is the same one in the Diagram on top.

Actors’ voices were heard by:

1. Projection: the act of throwing your voice without shouting
2. Acoustic: the stage was round, so it was easier for the sound to travel. The stage had an Acoustic setting. 

Setting: The background was often left as it was in an Act. They only change the position of small trivial things. For example: a stool.

Breaks: There were often long breaks between Acts. They used these breaks to change the settings.  Breaks were about an hour long.

The Elements of Drama are:

1-      Plot Structure

2-      Characters: the protagonist, the antagonist and the conflict between these characters.

3-      Setting: where the play takes place

4-      Theme: the general Idea of the play

5-      Tone

Title: This often tells us what the story is going to be about, or who the main character of the story is. Like in Hamlet, we know that Hamlet is the protagonist.

Stereotype characters: These characters are flat characters. They never change, and they never develop.

Dynamic characters: these characters are round characters. They seem to evolve or grow up, or even change as the story/play progresses.