Chapter 5 Reading the Script

 

Script: is a plan that tells you how the performance should look and sound.

             -For a play it is written by a playwright and is quite detailed.

             -For other kinds it can be less detailed like an outline developed for a mime. 

 

Each script has 3 types of writing:

1-     Dialogue- words spoken, technically by 2 or more characters. It is always printed in normal typeface.[A character’s single speech is called Line]

2-     Character- imaginary person that speaks the dialogue. His name is always in capital and is at the beginning of the line.

3-     Stage direction- instruction about unspoken things to be done. It’s in italics and inside parentheses to make the reader tell the difference.

 

 

The Difference between Playwright and Stories

1-     In a Playwright, it is harder to understand, because it only gives hints in the stage directions, while stories use dialogue to make people real.

2-     It is not always true in a playwright. This is because almost all the information is given in the dialogue with means that people/characters often lie.

 

Reading between the lines: people do this in playwrights to get the idea of what it is about. There are 2 ways o do this but the second way is discussed in the next chapter.

 

READING THE COMPLETE PLAY

 

Plot: -It is a series of events that are part of a dramatic action.

   -Also, it is asking you “what happens?”

   -It is a sequence of scenes.

 

2 types of scenes:

1-     Happens in one place, in one continuous time.

2-     Normally happens in France so called a “French scene”  and it depends on a character leaving and another/ or the same, entering.

 

3 characteristics of Actions:

1-     Complete- the audience can understand it if they watched it all

2-     Simple- they can understand it in one view. But complex enough to grab our attention

3-     Special events- events that are connected together with something other than time. [Plot]

 

Characters: the imaginary person that carry out the actions of the play.

 

 

2 aspects of characters:

1-     “Who does it”

2-     “What is each character like?”

 

Conflict:  this is what the dramatic action revolves around; it is the obstacle that denies the characters what they want to do/say. Ask yourself whom it is between.

 

Setting: - Imaginary time and place I n which the action occurs

-         It is the specific scenery on stage in every scene.

 

Exposition: it is the information about the past or the setting.