Literary Forms and History-2

FOCUS ON LITERARY FORMS

"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out."  -Alfred Hitchcock

Defining Drama

Drama is a form of literature that tells a story through performances by actors in front of an audience.  Because a drama, or play, has to hold the interest of a alive audience, the usual ingredients of plot--tension, confrontation between characters, and resolution--are heightened.  In fact, emotional intensity is so characteristic of drama that we used the adjective "dramatic" to describe anything vivid, striking, or exciting.

Elements of Drama

Plays consist of two kinds of writing, each with a different purpose:  Dialogue tells the story, while stage directions help the cast and production staff to bring the text to life.

Dialogue  Any lines spoken by actors by actors are considered dialogue.  It is through dialogue and action that the playwright, or author, tells the story.  Most dialogue consists of characters speaking to one another.  However, playwrights also use these dramatic conventions to communicate with the audience:

• Soliloquy:  a long speech expressing private thoughts, delivered by a character who is alone onstage
• Monologue:  a long speech delivered by one character to another or to a group of characters
• Aside:  a private remark to one character or to the audience that breaks convention because it is understood not to be heard by other characters onstage
• Chorus:  a single character or group of characters whose words may connect scenes or convey the collection thoughts or feelings of the community.  The use of the chorus is most characteristic of classical drama.

Stage Directions  Many playwrights include stage directions, or instructions, about the setting, costumes, lighting, scenery, and props, or objects used onstage.  This text may also indicate how and when characters should move and deliver their lines.  Stage directions are usually printed in italics and sometimes set in brackets or parentheses. 

Structure of a Play   Plays are usually divided into large units, called acts, which are often made up of smaller units, called scenes. Shakespeare always had 5 acts. 

• Act I: introduce characters and setting
• Act II: bring on the conflict 
• Act III: The conflict results in a reversal for the main character 
• Act IV: Chaos comes because of the role reversal 
• Act V: All is brought back to order. Tie up all loose ends. 

Kinds of Drama

The ancient Greeks developed drama into a sophisticated art form.  They created two broad categories of drama:  tragedy and comedy.

Tragedy  Tragedies end with the downfall or death of the protagonist, or main character.  Shakespeare's Macbeth is a clear example of the genre, and it includes many of these key elements of tragedy:

• Tragic hero:  In ancient Greek and Shakespearean tragedy, the tragic hero is the main character--an outstanding person of high rank whose downfall is caused by his own flawed behavior
• Tragic flaw:  A tragic flaw is a part of the hero's character that leads him to make a fatal mistake.  Macbeth, for example, is led astray by his "vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself/And falls on th' other."
• Comic relief:  To relieve tension, playwrights often include humorous scenes or characters that provide comic relief.  Shakespeare usually uses characters from the lower ranks of society, such as servants, for comic relief.

Comedy  Comedies show ordinary people in conflict with society.  Comedic conflicts typically arise from misunderstandings, deceptions, disapproving authority figures, and mistaken identities, and are always resolved happily.  Some comic protagonists are ridiculous; others are sympathetic and likable.  There are two basic forms of comedy:

• A romantic comedy involves problems among lovers.
• A comedy of manners satirizes social customs of society.

Tragedy

• features noble or outstanding protagonist with a fatal flaw, usually pride 
• emphasizes human greatness, main character is larger than life: a king/prince
• arouses pity, fear, awe
• ends unhappily with destruction hero

Comedy

• features an ordinary protagonist
• emphasizes human foibles and weaknesses of society
• arouses sympathy, amusement
• ends happily with protagonist making peace with society

Literary History

"Can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram

Within this wooden O the very casques

That did affright the air at Agincour?"

-Shakespeare, from Henry V

The Elizabethan Theater

English drama came of age during the reign of Elizabeth I, developing into a sophisticated and popular art form.  although playwrights like Shakespeare were mainly responsible for the great theatrical achievements of the time, audiences and theater buildings were equally important.

Before the reign of Elizabeth I, traveling theater companies put on plays wherever they could find an audience, often performing in the open courtyards of inns.  Spectators watched from the ground or from balconies or galleries above.

England's First Playhouse

When Shakespeare was twelve years old, an actor names James Burbage built London's first theater, called simply The Theater.  Actors--even prominent and well-to-do actors like James Burbage--were frowned upon by the city fathers.  Nonetheless, they were wildly popular with the common people and were called on frequently to perform at court.  A man like Burbage enjoyed a reputation somewhat like a rock star's today.

The Globe  In 1597, the city fathers closed down The Theater.  In late 1598, Richard Burbage (James Burbage's son) and his men dismantled it and hauled it in pieces across the Thames to Southwark.  It took them six months to rebuild it, and when they did, they renamed it the Globe.

Scholars disagree about what the Globe actually looked like because there are no surviving drawings from the time or detailed descriptions.  Shakespeare refers to the building in Henry V as "this wooden O."  The building had to have been small enough for the actors to be heard, and we know that performances drew as many as 2,500 to 3,000 people.  These truly packed houses must have been uncomfortable--especially when you consider that people of the era didn't bathe or change their clothes very often!  Most spectators stood throughout the performance.  Some of the audience sat in a gallery behind the performers.  Though they saw only the actors' backs an probably could not hear very well, they were content to be seen by the rest of the audience.

There were no sets or lighting at the Globe.  Plays were performed in sunlight, and a playwright's words alone had to create moods like the one in the eerie first scene of Macbeth.  Holding an audience spellbound was complicated by the fact that most spectators ate and drank throughout the performance.

The first Globe met its demise in 1613, when a cannon fired as part of a performance of Henry VIII ignited the theater's thatched roof.  Everyone escaped unharmed, but the Globe burned to the ground.  Although the theater was rebuilt, the Puritans had it permanently closed in 1642.

The New Globe

Building a replica of Shakespeare's Globe was the American actor Sam Wanamaker's dream.  After long years of fundraising and construction, the theater opened to its first full season on June 8, 1997, with a production of Henry V.  Like the earlier Globe, this one is made of wood, with a thatched roof and lime plaster covering the walls. The stage and the galleries are covered, but the "bear pit," where the modern-day groundlings stand, is open to the skies.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of seeing Shakespeare's plays performed at the Globe is the immediacy of the action.  The performers, as Benedict Nightingale noted in the London Times, "are talking to you, asking you questions, involving you in their fears."  Is that not what theater is all about?

Shakespeare on Film

William Shakespeare wrote for the same audience that filmmakers write for today.  Recognizing that fact, filmmakers have adapted many of Shakespeare's plays as films.  As you read, you will se examples of some of the more notable adaptations.

< The 1956 science-fiction film Forbidden Planet Shakespeare's drama The Tempest transforming the play's mysterious island into distant planet.

 

Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's samurai epic Throne of Blood (1957) is considered one of the best film adaptations of Macbeth.   Toshiro Mifune (shown here) plays the character based on Shakespeare's tragic hero.

 

< The musical West Side Story (1961) updated Romeo and Juliet to the mean streets of New York City.  The warring families of Shakespeare's drama become rival gangs.

 

In 1996, Claire Danes (shown here) played Juliet to Leonardo DiCaprio's Romeo in Baz Luhrmann's version of Romeo and Juliet.  Luhrmann used Shakespeare's dialogue, but set the play in a hip modern suburb.

Reading:  Reflection

As the movie stills on this page suggest, filmmakers have taken varied approaches to Shakespeare's plays, reflecting popular tastes and interests as well as the influence of the plays themselves.  The timeless themes, powerful characters, and resonant language of the plays form a treasure trove, from which a creative filmmaker can borrow for his or her own work.