Drama Report

When we are thinking that dramatic texts are simply the same as poetry or just a narrative
that is written in purpose of being performed on stage, we are wrong. Dramatic texts are
generally meant to be transformed into another mode of presentation or medium which is the
theatre. This reason makes dramatic texts much more different compared to poetic or narrative
texts. Dramatic texts contain two parts; the primary text which contain the main body of the play
spoken by the characters, also the secondary texts which contain the dramatis personae and other
drama surrounding description. Not only the texts that is different, but also the feel we got from
watching the play on stage. As a reader of a play, we use our cognitive effort to imagine and
interpret all of the features that are being explained by ourselves. It’s different from when we
attend the performed of the play on stage, we can actually see and hear all of those features that
we are trying to imagine. So, it can be said that a stage performance will give us a multi-sensory
access, because it’s enriched with multimedia elements that our imagination couldn’t afford.
There are 8 main features of Drama that we need to know, so we can analyze the drama
better. First is about information flow. In drama, there is usually no narrator who tells us what is
going on in the story-world and that had an effect on how much information gained, how it
conveyed and whose perspective adopted. These things are very important to be noticed by the
plays, because the audience only gain information directly and correctly from what can be seen
and heard from the stage. The details of information given in play is better vividly appear at the
beginning of the play, since the audience will expect to learn something from the conflict of the
story which is called the exposition. The audience will be given the information about ‘who’,
‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, and ‘why’. That information will make the audience wonders about
how the story is going to be developed and what will be the result of the story. Even though
sometimes the information that they get won’t be as detailed as they expected, it will be better to
give that information than nothing at all.
Actually, the transmission of information can be modified where a narrator of the text
appears on stage. This technique was newly adapted and used as the so-called epic theatre. This
idea of alternating the audience from the action presented on stage in order to impede people’s
emotional involvement and their identification of the characters and conflict of the story. So, the
information will be conveyed here.
 Another important aspect to bear in mind when we are discussing the meditation of
information is perspective. Whose perspective is taken and whose views is expressed better,
those things will make us unconsciously taking sides in one of the character which its
perspective attract us more and indirectly leads us to feel related to that character.
Since there are differences between the audience’s and the character’s knowledge of
certain information, there will be something that is called dramatic irony. The audience will
usually have the necessary background knowledge of the events better than the character.
Therefore, narrators in narrative texts often use irony in their comments on character because
they are like the audience of the play which possess knowledge about the story. Unfortunately,
lack of vital information in this situation can badly lead to confusion and also contributes to a
sense of suspense.
Second is about structure. In analyzing drama, we have to be able to distinguish between
the story and the plot. Story is an assumed chronological sequence of events and can have
various plot-lines, while plot refers to actual logical arrangement of events and actions that is
used to explain ‘why’ something happened. Plots can always be either linear or non-linear.
Non-linear plots are more likely to confuse the audience, usually these plots appear more
frequently in modern drama and contemporary drama, which often questions the idea of logic
and causality. One of the classical poetic ‘laws’ to convey a sense of cohesiveness and unity was
the idea of the three unities: unity of plot, unity of place, and unity of time.
Third is space, this is also an important element in drama since the stage itself represents
the space where the action is presented. We should not forget that the types of stage have
changed in the history of the theatre and this also influenced the way plays were performed. The
analysis of places and settings in play can help us to get a better feel of the characters and their
behavior and could give us the sense of the overall atmosphere. Plays can be differentiated
significantly by looking at how space was presented and how much information about the space
was offered. Whatever explanation that we come up with, the first step is to note that the stage
and the represented setting usually have a purpose. That makes us question how they correlate
with what is presented on the actual text.
Fourth is time. In drama, time can be considered from a variety of angles and it is also a
crucial factor in the performance of play. Needless to say that the audience’s perception of the
time can also be varied. Different uses of time are of course important for the creation of certain
effects on the audience. When analyzing time in drama, the playing time of a piece of drama will
always depends on the speed at which actors perform individual scenes and can vary
significantly from one performance to another. It is also important to know the concept of order,
how are events ordered temporally, does temporal sequence of scenes correspond with the
temporal order of events and actions in the presented story. Furthermore, plays which present a
story in its chronological order will draw attention to the final outcome.
Fifth is character. In drama, characters play a dominant role in this genre and therefore
deserves close attention. The characters in plays can generally be divided into major and minor
characters, depending on how important they are for the plot. A good indicator is the amount of
time and speech as well as presence on stage is allocated for the characters. Major characters are
frequently, albeit not exclusively, multi-dimensional and dynamic while minor characters remain
mono-dimensional and static. Multi-dimensional characters usually display several character
traits and are thus reasonably complex while mono-dimensional characters can usually be
summarized by a single phrase or statement.
Sometimes the quality of characters can also depend on the subgenre to which a play
belongs because genres will traditionally follow certain conventions even as far as the dramatis
personae. Characters in play can often be classified by way of contrast or correspondences. By
presenting corresponding characters in such a contrastive manner, their individual characteristics
are thrown into sharper relief and certain qualities are highlighted with regard to the overall plot.
Characters can also be classified according to their membership to certain group of characters
which related to the constellation of the dramatic personnel. Constellations can be based on
sympathies and antipathies among character, usually it differs between heroes and their enemies.
Obviously, character constellation is a dynamic concept since sympathies/antipathies can change
and groups of people can also change. On stage, groups can be presented symbolically by certain
distinctive stage props or costumes and also through their gestures and relative spatial position to
one another. In contrast to character constellation, the term configuration denotes the sequential
presentation of different characters together on stage.
Sixth is types of utterance, because dramatic language is modelled on real-life
conversations, and yet, when we watch a play we also need to consider the differences between
real talk and drama talk. On the level of the story-world of a play, language can of course assume
all the pragmatic functions that can be found in real-life conversations. This is to ensure mutual
understanding and to convey information. However, dramatic language is often rhetorical and
poetic.
In drama, in contrast to narrative, characters typically talk to one another and the entire
plot is carried by and conveyed through their verbal interactions. Language in drama can be
presented as monologue or dialogue. Monologue means that only one character speaks while
dialogue always requires two or more participants. Another special form of speech in drama is
the so-called aside. Asides are spoken away from other characters, and a character is speaking
aside to himself.
In comparison to monologues and aside, dialogue is by far the most frequently used type
of speech in drama. In analyzing dialogue, we can look at turn-taking and the allocation of turns.
The distribution and amount of turns speakers are allocated in plays is an important feature to
investigate.
The play with language will entertains the audiences and at the same time attracts and
sustains their attention. A special type of wordplay is the so-called pun, where words are used
which are the same or at least similar sound and spelling but differ in meaning. Another concept
to be mentioned in the context of play with language is wit. The idea of wit, which combines
humor and intellect, plays a significant role in the so-called comedy of manners. Wit is expressed
in brief verbal expressions which are intentionally contrived to create a comic surprise.
Seventh is types of stage. Drama, just like other genres, has undergone significant
changes in its historical development. This is partly attributable to the fact that the types of the
stages have also changed. Each stage had its own characteristic, plays in ancient Greece were
staged in amphitheaters, which were marked by a round stage about three quarters surrounded by
the audience. Medial plays were primarily performed during religious festivities. They were
staged on wagons, which stopped somewhere in the market place and were entirely surrounded
by the audiences. The Elizabethan stage was typically found in public theatres, which still an
open-air theatre as the lack of artificial lighting made daylight necessary for performances.
Theatres of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were considerably smaller than the
Elizabethan theatre, and performances took place in closed rooms with artificial lighting. The
stage of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is called proscenium stage or picture frame
stage, because it is shaped in such a way that the audience watches the play as it would regard a
picture. The ramp clearly separates actors and audience, and the curtain underlines this division.
 Eight is dramatic sub-genres. We usually distinguish at least between two sub-genres of
drama: comedy and tragedy. While comedy typically aims at entertaining the audience and
making them laugh by reassuring them that no disaster will occur and the outcome of the story
will be positive, tragedy tries to raise the audience’s concern, to confront them with serious
action and conflict which typically end in a catastrophe.
Sometimes, scholars distinguish between high comedy, which appeals to the intellect and
has a serious purpose, and low comedy, where greater emphasis is placed on situation comedy.
Comedy also have sub-genres such as romantic, satiric, comedy of manners, farce, comedy of
humors, and melodrama. Each sub-genre has their own characteristic.
Romantic comedy usually shows a pair of lovers and their struggle to come together.
Satiric comedy usually has a critical purpose and attacks philosophical notions or political
practices as well as general deviations from social norms by ridiculing characters. Comedy of
Manners can be satirical in its outlook and it takes the artificial and sophisticated behavior of the
higher social classes under closer scrutiny. Farce typically provokes viewers to hearty laughter,
because it presents highly exaggerated and caricatured types of characters and often has unlikely
plot. Comedy of Humors is based on the assumption that a person’s character or temperament is
determined by the predominance of one of four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile).
Melodrama is a type of stage that mixes romantic or sensational plots with musical elements.
Tragedy also have sub-genres such as senecan, revenge, domestic/bourgeois, and
tragicomedy. Senecan Tragedy as the precursor of tragic drama were tragedies by the Roman
poet Seneca, it was recited rather than staged and then became a model for English playwrights
entailing the five-act structure, a complex plot and an elevated style of dialogue. Revenge
tragedy represented a popular genre in the Elizabethan Age and made extensive use of certain
elements of the Senecan tragedy such as murder, revenge, mutilations, and ghosts.
Domestic/Bourgeois tragedy was shown with a changing social system where the middle class
gained increasing importance and power, tragedies from 18th century onward shifted their focus
to protagonist form the middle or lower classes and were written in prose. Tragicomedy blurred
the boundaries of genres, it intermingles conventions concerning plot, character and subject
matter derived from both tragedy and comedy. Thus, character of both high and low social rank
can be mixed.