Drama

Question 1

What are key characterstics of Drama?

Answer 1

Script vs. Performance:

• Script: text for performance
• Performance: independent artistic work
• Variations in character presentation, gesture, and setting across performances highlight this independence.
• Performances are transient and cannot be exactly reproduced.

Multimedial Presentation:

• Theatre is a multimedial art form, combining acoustic (voices, music, sound effects) and visual (sets, costumes, lighting) elements.

Question 2

What stage forms are there in theatre?

Answer 2

Ancient Greek Amphitheaters: Large open spaces with audiences seated in semicircles, minimal set design, and distance preventing realistic performances.

Shakespearean Theatre:

• Intimate proximity between actors and audience.
• Minimal sets, natural daylight, and imaginative audience participation.

Modern Proscenium Stage:

• Box-like structure with lighting and props, creating an aesthetic illusion of a “fourth wall” separating stage and audience.

Contemporary Experimentation: Challenges traditional forms, sometimes reviving older stage styles.

Question 3

What is the communication Model for Drama and theater?

Answer 3

Internal Communication in Drama:

• Communication occurs primarily on the character level without an intermediary narrator.
• Absolute nature of dramatic texts: Unlike narrative texts, dramas generally lack a mediating communication level

Communication Model in Drama:

• Adresser: Author
• Message: Dramatic text
• Adressee: reader

Communication Model in Theatre:

• Addresser: theatre apparatus (director, actors, designers)
• Message: performance (dialogue most important medium for transmission)
• Addressee: audience

The dramatic text and performance mutually influence one another

Question 4

What level of meanings are there in drama?

Answer 4

Dramatic level: Interaction between characters on stage.

Theatrical level: Communication between performers and the audience.

Everyday level: Audience interpretation and discussion of the play in relation to societal norms.

Question 5

What are primary and secondary texts?

Answer 5

Primary Text: The dialogue spoken by characters.

Secondary Text: Stage directions, scene descriptions, character actions, and other non-spoken elements.

Question 6

What is an Epic in Drama?

Answer 6

Epic: when performance resembles narrative form

• Characters Inside the Action: Narrators who are part of the play’s events, e.g., Salieri in Amadeus, narrating his rivalry with Mozart.
• Characters Outside the Action: Narrators who observe but do not participate, e.g., the Stage Manager in Our Town.

Epic Elements:

• Verbal Forms: Commentary in stage directions, banners, or projections.
• Non-Verbal Forms: Techniques such as breaking the fourth wall or stepping out of character, which challenge the theatrical illusion.

Question 7

What are Verbal and Non-Verbal Theatrical Codes?

Answer 7

Acoustic signs: Durative

• Actor: voice quality

Acoustic signs: Non-durative

• Stage: music, short sounds, lighting, props
• Actor: pitch (child voice), utterances

Visual signs: durative

• Stage: stage-set
• Actor: costume, stature

Visual signs: Non-durative

• Stage: props, lighting
• Actor: body language

durative theatre codes: remain constant over an extended period of time
non-durative theatre codes: temporary codes

Question 8

What’s the difference between exposition and Dramatic Introduciton?

Answer 8

Exposition: Provides background details about the setting, characters, and prior events (referential function).

• Isolated Exposition: Concentrated at the start (e.g., prologue).
• Integrated Exposition: Distributed gradually through dialogue or monologue.
• Analytical Drama: Exposition unfolds continuously, revealing past events gradually.

Dramatic Introduction: Engages the audience, establishes tone, and draws attention to the play (phatic function).

Question 9

What is Dialogue and Monologue?

Answer 9

Dialogue:

• Exchange of remarks between two or more characters.
• Functions: Progresses action, reveals character, clarifies conflict, and communicates central themes.

Monologue: Spoken with others present.

Soliloquy: Spoken alone or ignoring others, revealing private thoughts.

• Provide exposition and transition.
• Reveal thoughts, plans, and internal conflicts.
• Establish character traits and elicit audience sympathy.

Question 10

What is Aside and Dramatic Irony?

Answer 10

Aside

• Monological Aside: A private thought for the audience.
• Dialogical Aside: A conspiratorial exchange hidden from others.
• Aside ad Spectatores: Direct address to the audience.
• Function: Provides the audience with exclusive information, creating an advantage over characters.

Dramatic Irony and Discrepant Awareness

• Discrepant Awareness: When characters and audience have different levels of information.
• Dramatic Irony: Audience knows more than the character, leading to unintentional double meanings.
• Congruent Awareness: Audience and characters share the same level of information.

Question 11

What is antique theater?

Answer 11

Aristotelian Drama

• Emphasizes unity of place, time, and action to create a linear and comprehensible plot (e.g., events often occur within 24 hours in a single setting).

Tragedy:

• Often shaped by external forces frustrating characters’ plans.
• 5 Act Structure:

  * Introduction
  * Conflict development
  * Climax and tragic descent
  * Delay
  * Catastrophe/Dénouement

Comedy: Resolutions arise from chance events or opponents’ failed schemes.

Question 12

What are Theatre of the Absurd and In Yer Face theatre and Verbatim theatre?

Answer 12

Theater of the Absurd

• Emerged in the 1950s, influenced by post-WWII existentialism, expressing despair and confusion.
• Rejects Aristotelian conventions: circular narratives, no clear action, time, or place (Waiting for Godot).

In-Yer-Face Theatre

• Provocative 1990s movement confronting taboos (rape, murder, incest) with explicit language and themes.
• Often performed on smaller stages for an intimate, uncomfortable experience.

Verbatim Theatre

• Documentary-style theater using real transcripts (e.g., interviews) performed word-for-word.
• Focuses on replicating accents and maintaining the original meaning for a sense of truth and reality.

Question 13

What is Simulacrum Theater (Jean Baudrillard’s Theory)?

Answer 13

Mirrors reality: Simulacrum reflects something real (e.g., Titanic film mirrors historical Titanic).

Masks reality: Adds fictional elements, masking true events (e.g., Jack and Rose weren’t real).

Masks absence of reality: Represents something that never existed (e.g., Disneyland castle).

No reality, only simulacrum: Pure fiction treated as real (e.g., Edward Cullen’s fandom).