Understanding Drama: Elements, Genres, and Characteristics
Drama: A Major Literary Genre
Drama, a prominent literary genre, presents one or more conflicts directly through characters who develop the argument on stage, primarily through dialogue. Plays are inherently intended for performance.
Characteristics of Drama
- Playwrights must convey a story within a limited timeframe.
- The storyline should captivate the audience throughout the performance, building towards a climax and resolution.
- Characters are designed for portrayal by actors on a stage.
- Dialogue drives the action and presents the central conflict.
- The author’s voice is implicit, revealed through the plot and characters.
- Stage directions (annotations) provide instructions on setting and character actions.
Elements of Drama
Action
The action, or plot, unfolds during a performance. It is typically divided into acts (or sessions), often three. A change of setting within an act signifies a change of scene. Each entrance or exit of a character marks a new scene.
Characters
Characters drive the dramatic action through dialogue. Due to time and space constraints, in-depth psychological portrayals are often limited to main characters. Characters utilize mime, gestures, and speech, sometimes guided by the author’s annotations or the director’s interpretation. Historically, certain character prototypes (e.g., the lover, the lady’s father) represented specific ideals.
Dramatic Tension
Dramatic tension is the audience’s reaction to unfolding events. Playwrights maintain interest through highlights, pacing, and plot twists. Techniques like rapid action, delayed resolution, and anti-climax enhance dramatic tension.
Time
Managing time in a play requires considering the representation time (performance duration), the action time (duration of the story), and mentioned time (time elapsed between events). Techniques like prolepsis (flashforward) and the rule of three unities (single day, place, and plot) address time constraints.
Dialogue
Dialogue propels the action. Characters converse, and occasionally, a character delivers an aside—a comment unheard by other characters but directed at the audience. Soliloquies are extended speeches where characters express inner thoughts and reflections.
Stage Directions
Stage directions guide the setting, character movement, and gestures. These instructions, often in brackets or italics, enhance understanding of the play.
Genres of Drama
Tragedy
Tragedies feature high-status characters facing serious conflicts, often driven by fate. The hero, representing an ideal, clashes with an antagonist (person or circumstance). The conflict typically leads to a disastrous outcome.
Tragicomedy
: usually treat a legendary theme, albeit with comic effects. Located halfway between tragedy and comedy: not funny situations are avoided, but neither have tragic consequences.
The comedy is based on light-hearted ridicule and denunciation of customs and everyday problems. The protagonists are usually ordinary people who are on the scene, although always from a comic perspective. Look for the laughter, so the outcome is happy, carefree and happy, not to mention the irony.
Dramatic genres
Auto sacramental religious works that have a single act in verse. The characters are allegorical (Death, the Poor, the Rich, the beauty, the world …). This genre has its heyday in the seventeenth century, thanks mainly to Calderon de la Barca. It is used to account for the day of Corpus Christi.
Sainete: short piece (one or two acts) comic character and manners, which can be written in verse and prose.
Appetizer: short play that was presented in the intervals of the major works. Has a comic character and is a popular mood. One of the best starters is author Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616).
Farce: comic book, short, and no other reason than to make people laugh. Usually have a strong satirical and characterized by exaggeration of situations.
Melodrama: usually has grave and serious situations in which good characters suffer mercilessly in the hands of the wicked. It is characterized by excessive sentimentality.