Drama Terms A-G

Question 1

Define ANTAGONIST

Answer 1

A character or force AGAINST which another character struggles

Question 2

Define APRON

Answer 2

The part of a PROSCENIUM STAGE that sticks out into the audience in front of the proscenium arch

Question 3

Define ASIDE

Answer 3

Words spoken by an actor DIRECTLY to the audience, but NOT heard by the other characters on stage

Question 4

Define BLOCKING

Answer 4

Movement patterns of actors on the stage.
- Planned by the director to create meaningful stage pictures

Question 5

Define BOX SET

Answer 5

• A set built BEHIND a proscenium arch to represent 3 walls of a room. The absent 4th wall on the proscenium line allows spectators to witness a DOMESTIC SCENE
• First used in the early 19thC

Question 6

Define CATHARSIS

Answer 6

The PURGING of the feelings of pity & fear.
- According to Aristotle the audience should experience catharsis at the END of a tragedy

Question 7

Define CHARACTER

Answer 7

• An imaginary person that inhabits a literary work
• Dramatic characters may be MAJOR or MINOR, STATIC (unchanging) or DYNAMIC (capable of change)

Question 8

Define CHORUS

Answer 8

• A traditional chorus in Greek tragedy is a group of characters who COMMENT on the action of the play WITHOUT participating in it
• A modern chorus serves a SIMILAR function but in a DIFFERENT form; it consists of a character/ narrator coming on stage and giving a prologue/ explicit background info or themes

Question 9

Define CLIMAX

Answer 9

The volta of the ACTION in the plot of a play and the point of GREATEST TENSION in the work

Question 10

Define COMIC RELIEF

Answer 10

Does NOT relate to the genre of comedy.
- Serves a specific purpose: it gives the spectator a moment of “relief” with a LIGHT HEARTED SCENE, after a succession of intensely tragic moments
- typically these scenes PARALLEL the tragic action that they interrupt

Question 11

Define CONFLICT

Answer 11

-there’s no drama without conflict
- the conflict between OPPOSING FORCES in a play can be:
1) INTERNAL (within a character)
2) EXTERNAL (between characters)
- is usually resolved by the end of the play

Question 12

Define COMPLICATION

Answer 12

An INTENSIFICATION of the conflict in a play

Question 13

Define CONVENTION

Answer 13

Literary conventions are defining features OR common agreement upon strategies and/or attributes of a particular literary genre
- The use of a chorus was a CONVENTION in Greek tragedy

Question 14

Define DENOUEMENT/ RESOLUTION

Answer 14

• Literally the action of UNTYING
• A denouement (or resolution) is the FINAL OUTCOME of the main complication in a play
• Usually occurs AFTER the climax
• aka the EXPLANATION or OUTCOME of a drama that reveals all the secrets and misunderstandings connected to the plot

Question 15

Define DIALOGUE

Answer 15

a style of speaking
- in drama diction can:
1) Reveal character
2) Imply attitudes
3) Convey Action
4) Identify themes
5) Suggest values
We speak of the diction PARTICULAR to a character

Question 16

Define DRAMATIC IRONY

Answer 16

A device in which a character holds a position or has an expectation REVERSED or FULFILLED in a way that the character did NOT expect but that the audience or readers have ANTICIPATED because their knowledge of events or individuals is MORE COMPLETE than the characters

Question 17

Define DYNAMIC CHARACTER

Answer 17

undergoes an important change in the course of the play- NOT changes in circumstance, but changes in some sense WITHIN the character in Q- changes in insight or understanding OR changes in commitment, or values.
EX: KING LEAR
The OPPOSITE is a STATIC CHARACTER who remains essentially the same.

Question 18

Define EXODUS

Answer 18

• the final scene & exit of the characters & chorus in a classical Greek play

Question 19

Define EXPOSITION

Answer 19

• The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background info is provided
• In most drama the characters have to expose the background to the action INDIRECTLY while talking in the most natural way
• what any person says must be CONSISTENT with his character and what he knows generally
• Exposition frequently employs devices such as:
  1) gestures
  2) glances
  3) asides

Question 20

Define FALLING ACTION

Answer 20

• this is when the events and complications begin to RESOLVE themselves and tension is RELEASED
• we learn whether the conflict has been resolved or not

Question 21

Define FLAT CHARACTERS

Answer 21

are often, but not always, relatively simple minor characters
- they tend to be presented through particular and limited traits; hence they become STEREOTYPES
- these characters do NOT change in the course of a play

Question 22

Define FOIL

Answer 22

a SECONDARY character whose situation often PARALLELS that of the main character while his behaviour or response or character CONTRASTS with that of the main character, throwing light on that particular character’s specific TEMPERAMENT

Question 23

Define FORESHADOWING

Answer 23

Chekhov: “One must not put a loaded rifle on stage if no one is thinking of firing it”
- CHEKHOV’s GUN (aka foreshadowing) is a literary technique that introduces an apparently irrelevant element early in the story; its SIGNIFICANCE becomes clear later in the play

Question 24

Define FOURTH WALL

Answer 24

• the IMAGINARY wall that SEPARATES the audience from the action taking place on stage
• In a traditional theatre setting this imaginary wall has been REMOVED so that the audience can “PEEP” into the fictional world and see what is going on
• Of the audience is addressed directly, this is aka “BREAKING THE 4TH WALL”

Question 25

Define GESTURE

Answer 25

the PHYSICAL movement of a character during a play
- gesture is used to reveal character, and may include facial expressions as well as movements of other parts of an actor’s body