The meaning of the word drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.^[1] Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle’s Poetics (c. 335 BC)—the earliest work of dramatic theory.^[2]

The term «drama» comes from a Greek word meaning «deed» or «act» (Classical Greek: δρᾶμα, drâma), which is derived from «I do» (Classical Greek: δράω, dráō). The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy.

In English (as was the analogous case in many other European languages), the word play or game (translating the Anglo-Saxon pleġan or Latin ludus) was the standard term for dramas until William Shakespeare’s time—just as its creator was a play-maker rather than a dramatist and the building was a play-house rather than a theatre.^[3]

The use of «drama» in a more narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from the modern era. «Drama» in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy—for example, Zola’s Thérèse Raquin (1873) or Chekhov’s Ivanov (1887). It is this narrower sense that the film and television industries, along with film studies, adopted to describe «drama» as a genre within their respective media. The term «radio drama» has been used in both senses—originally transmitted in a live performance. It may also be used to refer to the more high-brow and serious end of the dramatic output of radio.^[4]

The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception.^[5]

Mime is a form of drama where the action of a story is told only through the movement of the body. Drama can be combined with music: the dramatic text in opera is generally sung throughout; as for in some ballets dance «expresses or imitates emotion, character, and narrative action».^[6] Musicals include both spoken dialogue and songs; and some forms of drama have incidental music or musical accompaniment underscoring the dialogue (melodrama and Japanese Nō, for example).^[7] Closet drama is a form that is intended to be read, rather than performed.^[8] In improvisation, the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance; performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an audience.^[9]

History of Western drama[edit]

Classical Greek drama[edit]

Western drama originates in classical Greece.^[10] The theatrical culture of the city-state of Athens produced three genres of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Their origins remain obscure, though by the 5th century BC, they were institutionalised in competitions held as part of festivities celebrating the god Dionysus.^[11] Historians know the names of many ancient Greek dramatists, not least Thespis, who is credited with the innovation of an actor («hypokrites«) who speaks (rather than sings) and impersonates a character (rather than speaking in his own person), while interacting with the chorus and its leader («coryphaeus«), who were a traditional part of the performance of non-dramatic poetry (dithyrambic, lyric and epic).^[12]

Only a small fraction of the work of five dramatists, however, has survived to this day: we have a small number of complete texts by the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the comic writers Aristophanes and, from the late 4th century, Menander.^[13] Aeschylus’ historical tragedy The Persians is the oldest surviving drama, although when it won first prize at the City Dionysia competition in 472 BC, he had been writing plays for more than 25 years.^[14] The competition («agon«) for tragedies may have begun as early as 534 BC; official records («didaskaliai«) begin from 501 BC when the satyr play was introduced.^[15] Tragic dramatists were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play (though exceptions were made, as with Euripides’ Alcestis in 438 BC). Comedy was officially recognized with a prize in the competition from 487 to 486 BC.

Five comic dramatists competed at the City Dionysia (though during the Peloponnesian War this may have been reduced to three), each offering a single comedy.^[16] Ancient Greek comedy is traditionally divided between «old comedy» (5th century BC), «middle comedy» (4th century BC) and «new comedy» (late 4th century to 2nd BC).^[17]

Classical Roman drama[edit]

Following the expansion of the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) into several Greek territories between 270 and 240 BC, Rome encountered Greek drama.^[18] From the later years of the republic and by means of the Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD), theatre spread west across Europe, around the Mediterranean and reached England; Roman theatre was more varied, extensive and sophisticated than that of any culture before it.^[19]

While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BC marks the beginning of regular Roman drama.^[20] From the beginning of the empire, however, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments.^[21] The first important works of Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 BC.^[22] Five years later, Gnaeus Naevius also began to write drama.^[22] No plays from either writer have survived. While both dramatists composed in both genres, Andronicus was most appreciated for his tragedies and Naevius for his comedies; their successors tended to specialise in one or the other, which led to a separation of the subsequent development of each type of drama.^[22]

By the beginning of the 2nd century BC, drama was firmly established in Rome and a guild of writers (collegium poetarum) had been formed.^[23] The Roman comedies that have survived are all fabula palliata (comedies based on Greek subjects) and come from two dramatists: Titus Maccius Plautus (Plautus) and Publius Terentius Afer (Terence).^[24] In re-working the Greek originals, the Roman comic dramatists abolished the role of the chorus in dividing the drama into episodes and introduced musical accompaniment to its dialogue (between one-third of the dialogue in the comedies of Plautus and two-thirds in those of Terence).^[25] The action of all scenes is set in the exterior location of a street and its complications often follow from eavesdropping.^[25]

Plautus, the more popular of the two, wrote between 205 and 184 BC and twenty of his comedies survive, of which his farces are best known; he was admired for the wit of his dialogue and his use of a variety of poetic meters.^[26] All of the six comedies that Terence wrote between 166 and 160 BC have survived; the complexity of his plots, in which he often combined several Greek originals, was sometimes denounced, but his double-plots enabled a sophisticated presentation of contrasting human behaviour.^[26] No early Roman tragedy survives, though it was highly regarded in its day; historians know of three early tragedians—Quintus Ennius, Marcus Pacuvius, and Lucius Accius.^[25]

From the time of the empire, the work of two tragedians survives—one is an unknown author, while the other is the Stoic philosopher Seneca.^[27] Nine of Seneca’s tragedies survive, all of which are fabula crepidata (tragedies adapted from Greek originals); his Phaedra, for example, was based on Euripides’ Hippolytus.^[28] Historians do not know who wrote the only extant example of the fabula praetexta (tragedies based on Roman subjects), Octavia, but in former times it was mistakenly attributed to Seneca due to his appearance as a character in the tragedy.^[27]

Medieval[edit]

Beginning in the early Middle Ages, churches staged dramatised versions of biblical events, known as liturgical dramas, to enliven annual celebrations.^[29] The earliest example is the Easter trope Whom do you Seek? (Quem-Quaeritis) (c. 925).^[30] Two groups would sing responsively in Latin, though no impersonation of characters was involved. By the 11th century, it had spread through Europe to Russia, Scandinavia, and Italy; excluding Islamic-era Spain.

In the 10th century, Hrosvitha wrote six plays in Latin modeled on Terence’s comedies, but which treated religious subjects.^[31] Her plays are the first known to be composed by a female dramatist and the first identifiable Western drama of the post-Classical era.^[31] Later, Hildegard of Bingen wrote a musical drama, Ordo Virtutum (c. 1155).^[31]

One of the most famous of the early secular plays is the courtly pastoral Robin and Marion, written in the 13th century in French by Adam de la Halle.^[32] The Interlude of the Student and the Girl (c. 1300), one of the earliest known in English, seems to be the closest in tone and form to the contemporaneous French farces, such as The Boy and the Blind Man.^[33]

Many plays survive from France and Germany in the late Middle Ages, when some type of religious drama was performed in nearly every European country. Many of these plays contained comedy, devils, villains, and clowns.^[34] In England, trade guilds began to perform vernacular «mystery plays,» which were composed of long cycles of many playlets or «pageants,» of which four are extant: York (48 plays), Chester (24), Wakefield (32) and the so-called «N-Town» (42). The Second Shepherds’ Play from the Wakefield cycle is a farcical story of a stolen sheep that its protagonist, Mak, tries to pass off as his new-born child asleep in a crib; it ends when the shepherds from whom he has stolen are summoned to the Nativity of Jesus.^[35]

Morality plays (a modern term) emerged as a distinct dramatic form around 1400 and flourished in the early Elizabethan era in England. Characters were often used to represent different ethical ideals. Everyman, for example, includes such figures as Good Deeds, Knowledge and Strength, and this characterisation reinforces the conflict between good and evil for the audience. The Castle of Perseverance (c. 1400–1425) depicts an archetypal figure’s progress from birth through to death. Horestes (c. 1567), a late «hybrid morality» and one of the earliest examples of an English revenge play, brings together the classical story of Orestes with a Vice from the medieval allegorical tradition, alternating comic, slapstick scenes with serious, tragic ones.^[36] Also important in this period were the folk dramas of the Mummers Play, performed during the Christmas season. Court masques were particularly popular during the reign of Henry VIII.^[37]

Elizabethan and Jacobean[edit]

One of the great flowerings of drama in England occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries. Many of these plays were written in verse, particularly iambic pentameter. In addition to Shakespeare, such authors as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Middleton, and Ben Jonson were prominent playwrights during this period. As in the medieval period, historical plays celebrated the lives of past kings, enhancing the image of the Tudor monarchy. Authors of this period drew some of their storylines from Greek mythology and Roman mythology or from the plays of eminent Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence.

English Restoration comedy[edit]

Restoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed in England during the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. Comedy of manners is used as a synonym of Restoration comedy.^[38] After public theatre had been banned by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 with the Restoration of Charles II signalled a renaissance of English drama.^[39] Restoration comedy is known for its sexual explicitness, urbane, cosmopolitan wit, up-to-the-minute topical writing, and crowded and bustling plots. Its dramatists stole freely from the contemporary French and Spanish stage, from English Jacobean and Caroline plays, and even from Greek and Roman classical comedies, combining the various plotlines in adventurous ways. Resulting differences of tone in a single play were appreciated rather than frowned on, as the audience prized «variety» within as well as between plays. Restoration comedy peaked twice. The genre came to spectacular maturity in the mid-1670s with an extravaganza of aristocratic comedies. Twenty lean years followed this short golden age, although the achievement of the first professional female playwright, Aphra Behn, in the 1680s is an important exception. In the mid-1690s, a brief second Restoration comedy renaissance arose, aimed at a wider audience. The comedies of the golden 1670s and 1690s peak times are significantly different from each other.

The unsentimental or «hard» comedies of John Dryden, William Wycherley, and George Etherege reflected the atmosphere at Court and celebrated with frankness an aristocratic macho lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. The Earl of Rochester, real-life Restoration rake, courtier and poet, is flatteringly portrayed in Etherege’s The Man of Mode (1676) as a riotous, witty, intellectual, and sexually irresistible aristocrat, a template for posterity’s idea of the glamorous Restoration rake (actually never a very common character in Restoration comedy). The single play that does most to support the charge of obscenity levelled then and now at Restoration comedy is probably Wycherley’s masterpiece The Country Wife (1675), whose title contains a lewd pun and whose notorious «china scene» is a series of sustained double entendres.^[40]

During the second wave of Restoration comedy in the 1690s, the «softer» comedies of William Congreve and John Vanbrugh set out to appeal to more socially diverse audience with a strong middle-class element, as well as to female spectators. The comic focus shifts from young lovers outwitting the older generation to the vicissitudes of marital relations. In Congreve’s Love for Love (1695) and The Way of the World (1700), the give-and-take set pieces of couples testing their attraction for one another have mutated into witty prenuptial debates on the eve of marriage, as in the latter’s famous «Proviso» scene. Vanbrugh’s The Provoked Wife (1697) has a light touch and more humanly recognisable characters, while The Relapse (1696) has been admired for its throwaway wit and the characterisation of Lord Foppington, an extravagant and affected burlesque fop with a dark side.^[41] The tolerance for Restoration comedy even in its modified form was running out by the end of the 17th century, as public opinion turned to respectability and seriousness even faster than the playwrights did.^[42] At the much-anticipated all-star première in 1700 of The Way of the World, Congreve’s first comedy for five years, the audience showed only moderate enthusiasm for that subtle and almost melancholy work. The comedy of sex and wit was about to be replaced by sentimental comedy and the drama of exemplary morality.

Modern and postmodern[edit]

The pivotal and innovative contributions of the 19th-century Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen and the 20th-century German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht dominate modern drama; each inspired a tradition of imitators, which include many of the greatest playwrights of the modern era.^[43] The works of both playwrights are, in their different ways, both modernist and realist, incorporating formal experimentation, meta-theatricality, and social critique.^[44] In terms of the traditional theoretical discourse of genre, Ibsen’s work has been described as the culmination of «liberal tragedy», while Brecht’s has been aligned with an historicised comedy.^[45]

Other important playwrights of the modern era include Antonin Artaud, August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, Frank Wedekind, Maurice Maeterlinck, Federico García Lorca, Eugene O’Neill, Luigi Pirandello, George Bernard Shaw, Ernst Toller, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Jean Genet, Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Dario Fo, Heiner Müller, and Caryl Churchill.

Opera[edit]

Western opera is a dramatic art form that arose during the Renaissance^[46] in an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama in which dialogue, dance, and song were combined. Being strongly intertwined with western classical music, the opera has undergone enormous changes in the past four centuries and it is an important form of theatre until this day. Noteworthy is the major influence of the German 19th-century composer Richard Wagner on the opera tradition. In his view, there was no proper balance between music and theatre in the operas of his time, because the music seemed to be more important than the dramatic aspects in these works. To restore the connection with the classical drama, he entirely renewed the operatic form to emphasize the equal importance of music and drama in works that he called «music dramas».

Chinese opera has seen a more conservative development over a somewhat longer period of time.

Pantomime[edit]

Pantomime (informally panto),^[47] is a type of musical comedy stage production, designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is still performed throughout the United Kingdom, generally during the Christmas and New Year season and, to a lesser extent, in other English-speaking countries. Modern pantomime includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing, employs gender-crossing actors, and combines topical humour with a story loosely based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale.^[48][49] It is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers.

These stories follow in the tradition of fables and folk tales. Usually, there is a lesson learned, and with some help from the audience, the hero/heroine saves the day. This kind of play uses stock characters seen in masque and again commedia dell’arte, these characters include the villain (doctore), the clown/servant (Arlechino/Harlequin/buttons), the lovers etc. These plays usually have an emphasis on moral dilemmas, and good always triumphs over evil, this kind of play is also very entertaining making it a very effective way of reaching many people.

Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century commedia dell’arte tradition of Italy, as well as other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th-century masques and music hall.^[48] An important part of the pantomime, until the late 19th century, was the harlequinade.^[50] Outside Britain the word «pantomime» is usually used to mean miming, rather than the theatrical form discussed here.^[51]

Mime[edit]

Mime is a theatrical medium where the action of a story is told through the movement of the body, without the use of speech. Performance of mime occurred in Ancient Greece, and the word is taken from a single masked dancer called Pantomimus, although their performances were not necessarily silent.^[52] In Medieval Europe, early forms of mime, such as mummer plays and later dumbshows, evolved. In the early nineteenth century Paris, Jean-Gaspard Deburau solidified the many attributes that we have come to know in modern times, including the silent figure in whiteface.^[53]

Jacques Copeau, strongly influenced by Commedia dell’arte and Japanese Noh theatre, used masks in the training of his actors. Étienne Decroux, a pupil of his, was highly influenced by this and started exploring and developing the possibilities of mime and refined corporeal mime into a highly sculptural form, taking it outside of the realms of naturalism. Jacques Lecoq contributed significantly to the development of mime and physical theatre with his training methods.^[54]

Ballet[edit]

While some ballet emphasises «the lines and patterns of movement itself» dramatic dance «expresses or imitates emotion, character, and narrative action».^[6] Such ballets are theatrical works that have characters and «tell a story»,^[55] Dance movements in ballet «are often closely related to everyday forms of physical expression, [so that] there is an expressive quality inherent in nearly all dancing», and this is used to convey both action and emotions; mime is also used.^[55] Examples include Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, which tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer’s curse, Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet, based on Shakespeare’s famous play, and Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka, which tells the story of the loves and jealousies of three puppets.

Creative drama[edit]

Creative drama includes dramatic activities and games used primarily in educational settings with children. Its roots in the United States began in the early 1900s. Winifred Ward is considered to be the founder of creative drama in education, establishing the first academic use of drama in Evanston, Illinois.^[56]

Asian drama[edit]

India[edit]

The earliest form of Indian drama was the Sanskrit drama.^[57] Between the 1st century AD and the 10th was a period of relative peace in the history of India during which hundreds of plays were written.^[58] With the Islamic conquests that began in the 10th and 11th centuries, theatre was discouraged or forbidden entirely.^[59] Later, in an attempt to re-assert indigenous values and ideas, village theatre was encouraged across the subcontinent, developing in various regional languages from the 15th to the 19th centuries.^[60] The Bhakti movement was influential in performances in several regions. Apart from regional languages, Assam saw the rise of Vaishnavite drama in an artificially mixed literary language called Brajavali.^[61] A distinct form of one-act plays called Ankia Naat developed in the works of Sankardev,^[62] a particular presentation of which is called Bhaona.^[63] Modern Indian theatre developed during the period of colonial rule under the British Empire, from the mid-19th century until the mid-20th.^[64]

Sanskrit theatre[edit]

The earliest-surviving fragments of Sanskrit drama date from the 1st century AD.^[65] The wealth of archeological evidence from earlier periods offers no indication of the existence of a tradition of theatre.^[66] The ancient Vedas (hymns from between 1500 and 1000 BC that are among the earliest examples of literature in the world) contain no hint of it (although a small number are composed in a form of dialogue) and the rituals of the Vedic period do not appear to have developed into theatre.^[66] The Mahābhāṣya by Patañjali contains the earliest reference to what may have been the seeds of Sanskrit drama.^[67] This treatise on grammar from 140 BC provides a feasible date for the beginnings of theatre in India.^[67]

The major source of evidence for Sanskrit theatre is A Treatise on Theatre (Nātyaśāstra), a compendium whose date of composition is uncertain (estimates range from 200 BC to 200 AD) and whose authorship is attributed to Bharata Muni. The Treatise is the most complete work of dramaturgy in the ancient world. It addresses acting, dance, music, dramatic construction, architecture, costuming, make-up, props, the organisation of companies, the audience, competitions, and offers a mythological account of the origin of theatre.^[67]

Its drama is regarded as the highest achievement of Sanskrit literature.^[68] It utilised stock characters, such as the hero (nayaka), heroine (nayika), or clown (vidusaka). Actors may have specialised in a particular type. It was patronized by the kings as well as village assemblies. Famous early playwrights include Bhasa, Kalidasa (famous for Vikrama and Urvashi, Malavika and Agnimitra, and The Recognition of Shakuntala), Śudraka (famous for The Little Clay Cart), Asvaghosa, Daṇḍin, and Emperor Harsha (famous for Nagananda, Ratnavali, and Priyadarsika). Śakuntalā (in English translation) influenced Goethe’s Faust (1808–1832).^[68]

Mobile theatre[edit]

A distinct form of theatre has developed in India where the entire crew travels performing plays from place to place, with makeshift stages and equipment, particularly in the eastern parts of the country. Jatra (Bengali for «travel»), originating in the Vaishnavite movement of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Bengal, is a tradition that follows this format.^[69] Vaishnavite plays in the neighbouring state of Assam, pioneered by Srimanta Sankardeva, takes the forms of Ankia Naat and Bhaona. These, along with Western influences, have inspired the development of modern mobile theatre, known in Assamese as Bhramyoman, in Assam.^[70] Modern Bhramyoman stages everything from Hindu mythology to adaptations of Western classics and Hollywood movies,^[71] and make use of modern techniques, such as live visual effects.^[72] Assamese mobile theatre is estimated to be an industry worth a hundred million.^[73] The self-contained nature of Bhramyoman, with all equipment and even the stage being carried by the troop itself, allows staging shows even in remote villages, giving wider reach. Pioneers of this industry include Achyut Lahkar, Brajanath Sarma etc.

Modern Indian drama[edit]

Rabindranath Tagore was a pioneering modern playwright who wrote plays noted for their exploration and questioning of nationalism, identity, spiritualism and material greed.^[74] His plays are written in Bengali and include Chitra (Chitrangada, 1892), The King of the Dark Chamber (Raja, 1910), The Post Office (Dakghar, 1913), and Red Oleander (Raktakarabi, 1924).^[74] Girish Karnad is a noted playwright, who has written a number of plays that use history and mythology, to critique and problematize ideas and ideals that are of contemporary relevance. Karnad’s numerous plays such as Tughlaq, Hayavadana, Taledanda, and Naga-Mandala are significant contributions to Indian drama. Vijay Tendulkar and Mahesh Dattani are amongst the major Indian playwrights of the 20th century. Mohan Rakesh in Hindi and Danish Iqbal in Urdu are considered architects of new age Drama. Mohan Rakesh’s Aadhe Adhoore and Danish Iqbal’s Dara Shikoh are considered modern classics.

China[edit]

Chinese theatre has a long and complex history. Today it is often called Chinese opera although this normally refers specifically to the popular form known as Beijing opera and Kunqu; there have been many other forms of theatre in China, such as zaju.

Japan[edit]

Japanese Nō drama is a serious dramatic form that combines drama, music, and dance into a complete aesthetic performance experience. It developed in the 14th and 15th centuries and has its own musical instruments and performance techniques, which were often handed down from father to son. The performers were generally male (for both male and female roles), although female amateurs also perform Nō dramas. Nō drama was supported by the government, and particularly the military, with many military commanders having their own troupes and sometimes performing themselves. It is still performed in Japan today.^[75]

Kyōgen is the comic counterpart to Nō drama. It concentrates more on dialogue and less on music, although Nō instrumentalists sometimes appear also in Kyōgen. Kabuki drama, developed from the 17th century, is another comic form, which includes dance.

Modern theatrical and musical drama has also developed in Japan in forms such as shingeki and the Takarazuka Revue.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

Sources[edit]

External links[edit]

• Greek & Roman Mask Timeline

Drama definition in literature: A drama is defined as a piece of literature of which the intended purpose is to be performed in front of an audience.

What is Drama in Literature?

Drama meaning: A drama is a type of literature that is written for the purpose of being performed in front of an audience. This type of writing is written in the form of a script, and the story is told through the lines of the characters played by actors.

Example of Drama

The television show Grey’s Anatomy is considered to be a genre. This show is written with the intended purpose of actors performing the lines for their viewing audience.

Types of Drama in Literature

Comedy: A comedy is a type of drama that is written to be entertaining or amusing for the audience.

• The television show Seinfeld is considered a comedy. This sitcom follows the lives of four friends and the humorous situations they encounter together.

Tragedy: A tragedy is a type of drama that can be described as serious in nature and often includes a catastrophic ending.

• William Shakespeare’s famous play Romeo and Juliet is an example of a tragedy. In this play, two young children fall in love and feel the need to hide this from their parents due to their feuding families. However, their rash thinking leads them to their ultimate deaths.

Farce: A farce is a subcategory of comedy. Theses low comedies include ridiculous and slapstick comedic situations in order to create humor for the audience.

• The movie Dumb and Dumber is an example of a farce. This movie follows the story of two caricatures on a mission to return a briefcase to a beautiful lady. Throughout the film the two encounter several ridiculous and crude situations.

Melodrama: While it originally referred to dramas that included accompanying music, melodramas now refer to plays that include highly emotional situations in order to play on the feelings of the audience.

• The play Les parents terribles by Jean Cocteau is an example of a melodrama that involves several layers of over dramatic situations including cheating and suicide.

Musical Drama: Musical dramas refer to plays in which characters engage in dialogue but also include scenes in which the passion of the character is so great he expresses himself in song.

• Andrew Lloyd Weber’s The Phantom of the Opera is a well-known example of a musical drama that tells the story of obsession.

The Function of Drama

Dramas serve the function of entertainment for the audience. While reading a story is powerful, watching the story be performed by actors adds a level of realism to the work. In the age of binge watching, many people enjoy spending leisure time watching dramas specifically in the forms of movies or television.

Summary: What is a Drama in Literature?

Define drama in literature: In summation, a drama is a work of literature written for the intended purpose of being performed for an audience. Dramas are written in the form of a script and actors perform interpretations of the characters involved in order to tell the story the viewers versus reading a story in novel form.

Final Example:

The hit Grease by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, is an example of a musical drama. In this popular play and movie, viewers are taken through the story of high school love between two teens who are completely opposite outside the love they share for each other.

Contents

• 1 What is Drama in Literature?
• 2 Example of Drama
• 3 Types of Drama in Literature
• 4 The Function of Drama
• 5 Summary: What is a Drama in Literature?

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educalingo

Comedy has always been more challenging for me than drama.

Kelli Berglund

ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD DRAMA

From Late Latin: a play, from Greek: something performed, from drān to do.

PRONUNCIATION OF DRAMA

GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF DRAMA

Drama is a noun.

WHAT DOES DRAMA MEAN IN ENGLISH?

Definition of drama in the English dictionary

The first definition of drama in the dictionary is a work to be performed by actors on stage, radio, or television; play. Other definition of drama is the genre of literature represented by works intended for the stage. Drama is also the art of the writing and production of plays.

WORDS THAT RHYME WITH DRAMA

SYNONYMS OF «DRAMA»

The following words have a similar or identical meaning as «drama» and belong to the same grammatical category.

TRANSLATION OF DRAMA

Find out the translation of drama to 25 languages with our English multilingual translator.

TENDENCIES OF USE OF THE TERM «DRAMA»

The term «drama» is very widely used and occupies the 3.336 position in our list of most widely used terms in the English dictionary.

Principal search tendencies and common uses of drama

FREQUENCY OF USE OF THE TERM «DRAMA» OVER TIME

10 QUOTES WITH «DRAMA»

Famous quotes and sentences with the word drama.

10 ENGLISH BOOKS RELATING TO «DRAMA»

Discover the use of drama in the following bibliographical selection. Books relating to drama and brief extracts from same to provide context of its use in English literature.

10 NEWS ITEMS WHICH INCLUDE THE TERM «DRAMA»

Find out what the national and international press are talking about and how the term drama is used in the context of the following news items.

REFERENCE

« EDUCALINGO. Drama [online]. Available <https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/drama>. Apr 2023 ».

Literature
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Epic • Romance • Novel • Novella • Tragedy • Comedy • Drama • Folklore
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The term drama comes from a Greek word meaning «action» (Classical Greek: δράμα, dráma), which is derived from «to do» (Classical Greek: δράω, dráō). The enactment of drama in theater, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, is a widely used art form that is found in virtually all cultures.

The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia and Melpomene. Thalia was the Muse of comedy (the laughing face), while Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy (the weeping face).

The use of «drama» in the narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from Nineteenth-century theatre. Drama in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy, such as Émile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin (1873) or Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov (1887). It is this narrow sense that the film and television industry and film studies adopted to describe «drama» as a genre within their respective media.

Theories of drama date back to the work of the Ancient Greek philosophers. Plato, in a famous passage in «The Republic,» wrote that he would outlaw drama from his ideal state because the actor encouraged citizens to imitate their actions on stage. In his «Poetics,» Aristotle famously argued that tragedy leads to catharsis, allowing the viewer to purge unwanted emotional affect, and serving the greater social good.

History of Western drama

History of Western theatre
Greek • Roman • Medieval • Commedia dell’arte • English Early Modern • Spanish Golden Age • Neoclassical • Restoration • Augustan • Weimar • Romanticism • Melodrama • Naturalism • Realism • Modernism • Postmodern 19th century • 20th century

Classical Athenian drama

Classical Athenian drama
Tragedy • Comedy • Satyr play Aeschylus • Sophocles • Euripides • Aristophanes • Menander

Western drama originates in classical Greece. The theatrical culture of the city-state of Athens produced three genres of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Their origins remain obscure, though by the fifth century B.C.E. they were institutionalized in competitions held as part of festivities celebrating the god Dionysus.^[1] Historians know the names of many ancient Greek dramatists, not least Thespis, who is credited with the innovation of an actor («hypokrites«) who speaks (rather than sings) and impersonates a character (rather than speaking in his own person), while interacting with the chorus and its leader («coryphaeus«), who were a traditional part of the performance of non-dramatic poetry (dithyrambic, lyric and epic).^[2] Only a small fraction of the work of five dramatists, however, has survived to this day: we have a small number of complete texts by the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the comic writers Aristophanes and, from the late fourth century, Menander.^[3] Aeschylus’ historical tragedy The Persians is the oldest surviving drama, although when it won first prize at the City Dionysia competition in 472 B.C.E., he had been writing plays for more than 25 years.^[4] The competition («agon«) for tragedies may have begun as early as 534 B.C.E.; official records («didaskaliai«) begin from 501 B.C.E., when the satyr play was introduced.^[5] Tragic dramatists were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play (though exceptions were made, as with Euripides’ Alcestis in 438 B.C.E.). Comedy was officially recognized with a prize in the competition from 487-486 B.C.E. Five comic dramatists competed at the City Dionysia (though during the Peloponnesian War this may have been reduced to three), each offering a single comedy.^[6] Ancient Greek comedy is traditionally divided between «old comedy» (5th century B.C.E.), «middle comedy» (fourth century B.C.E.) and «new comedy» (late fourth century to second B.C.E.).^[7]

The Tenants of Classicism

The expression classicism as it applies to drama implies notions of order, clarity, moral purpose and good taste. Many of these notions are directly inspired by the works of Aristotle and Horace and by classical Greek and Roman masterpieces.

According to the tenants of classicism, a play should follow the Three Unities:

• Unity of place : the setting should not change. In practice, this lead to the frequent «Castle, interior.» Battles take place off stage.
• Unity of time: ideally the entire play should take place in 24 hours.
• Unity of action: there should be one central story and all secondary plots should be linked to it.

Although based on classical examples, the unities of place and time were seen as essential for the spectator’s complete absorption into the dramatic action; wildly dispersed settings or the break in time was considered detrimental to creating the theatrical illusion. Sometimes grouped with the unity of action is the notion that no character should appear unexpectedly late in the drama.

Roman drama

Following the expansion of the Roman Republic (509-27 B.C.E.) into several Greek territories between 270-240 B.C.E., Rome encountered Greek drama.^[8] From the later years of the republic and by means of the Roman Empire (27 B.C.E.-476 C.E.), theater spread west across Europe, around the Mediterranean and reached England; Roman theater was more varied, extensive and sophisticated than that of any culture before it.^[9] While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 B.C.E. marks the beginning of regular Roman drama.^[10] From the beginning of the empire, however, interest in full-length drama declined in favor of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments.^[11] The first important works of Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 B.C.E.^[12] Five years later, Gnaeus Naevius also began to write drama.^[12] No plays from either writer have survived. While both dramatists composed in both genres, Andronicus was most appreciated for his tragedies and Naevius for his comedies; their successors tended to specialize in one or the other, which led to a separation of the subsequent development of each type of drama.^[12] By the beginning of the second century B.C.E., drama was firmly established in Rome and a guild of writers (collegium poetarum) had been formed.^[13] The Roman comedies that have survived are all fabula palliata (comedies based on Greek subjects) and come from two dramatists: Titus Maccius Plautus (Plautus) and Publius Terentius Afer (Terence).^[14] In re-working the Greek originals, the Roman comic dramatists abolished the role of the chorus in dividing the drama into episodes and introduced musical accompaniment to its dialogue (between one-third of the dialogue in the comedies of Plautus and two-thirds in those of Terence).^[15] The action of all scenes is set in the exterior location of a street and its complications often follow from eavesdropping.^[15] Plautus, the more popular of the two, wrote between 205-184 B.C.E. and 20 of his comedies survive, of which his farces are best known; he was admired for the wit of his dialogue and his use of a variety of poetic meters.^[16] All of the six comedies that Terence wrote between 166-160 B.C.E. have survived; the complexity of his plots, in which he often combined several Greek originals, was sometimes denounced, but his double-plots enabled a sophisticated presentation of contrasting human behavior.^[16] No early Roman tragedy survives, though it was highly-regarded in its day; historians know of three early tragedians—Quintus Ennius, Marcus Pacuvius and Lucius Accius.^[15] From the time of the empire, the work of two tragedians survives—one is an unknown author, while the other is the Stoic philosopher Seneca.^[17] Nine of Seneca’s tragedies survive, all of which are fabula crepidata (tragedies adapted from Greek originals); his Phaedra, for example, was based on Euripides’ Hippolytus.^[18] Historians do not know who wrote the only extant example of the fabula praetexta (tragedies based on Roman subjects), Octavia, but in former times it was mistakenly attributed to Seneca due to his appearance as a character in the tragedy.^[17]

Medieval and Renaissance drama

In the Middle Ages, drama in the vernacular languages of Europe may have emerged from religious enactments of the liturgy. Mystery plays were presented on the porch of the cathedrals or by strolling players on feast days.

Renaissance theater derived from several medieval theater traditions, such as the mystery plays that formed a part of religious festivals in England and other parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. The mystery plays were complex retellings of legends based on biblical themes, originally performed in churches but later becoming more linked to the secular celebrations that grew up around religious festivals. Other sources include the morality plays that evolved out of the mysteries, and the «University drama» that attempted to recreate Greek tragedy. The Italian tradition of Commedia dell’arte as well as the elaborate masques frequently presented at court came to play roles in the shaping of public theater. Miracle and mystery plays, along with moralities and interludes, later evolved into more elaborate forms of drama, such as was seen on the Elizabethan stages.

Elizabethan and Jacobean

One of the great flowerings of drama in England occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Many of these plays were written in verse, particularly iambic pentameter. In addition to Shakespeare, such authors as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Middleton, and Ben Jonson were prominent playwrights during this period. As in the medieval period, historical plays celebrated the lives of past kings, enhancing the image of the Tudor monarchy. Authors of this period drew some of their storylines from Greek mythology and Roman mythology or from the plays of eminent Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence.

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s plays are considered by many to be the pinnacle of the dramatic arts. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication by the end of the sixteenth century. In his following phase he wrote mainly tragedies, including Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello. The plays are often regarded as the summit of Shakespeare’s art and among the greatest tragedies ever written. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognized as Shakespeare’s.

Shakespeare’s canon has achieved a unique standing in Western literature, amounting to a humanistic scripture. His insight in human character and motivation and his luminous, boundary-defying diction have influenced writers for centuries. Some of the more notable authors and poets so influenced are Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, and William Faulkner. According to Harold Bloom, Shakespeare «has been universally judged to be a more adequate representer of the universe of fact than anyone else, before or since.»^[19]

Seventeenth century French Neo-classicism

While the Puritans were shutting down theaters in England, one of the greatest flowerings of drama was taking place in France. By the 1660s, neo-classicism had emerged as the dominant trend in French theater. French neo-classicism represented an updated version of Greek and Roman classical theater. The key theoretical work on theater from this period was François Hedelin, abbé d’Aubignac’s «Pratique du théâtre» (1657), and the dictates of this work reveal to what degree «French classicism» was willing to modify the rules of classical tragedy to maintain the unities and decorum (d’Aubignac for example saw the tragedies of Oedipus and Antigone as unsuitable for the contemporary stage).

Although Pierre Corneille continued to produce tragedies to the end of his life, the works of Jean Racine from the late 1660s on totally eclipsed the late plays of the elder dramatist. Racine’s tragedies—inspired by Greek myths, Euripides, Sophocles and Seneca—condensed their plot into a tight set of passionate and duty-bound conflicts between a small group of noble characters, and concentrated on these characters’ conflicts and the geometry of their unfulfilled desires and hatreds. Racine’s poetic skill was in the representation of pathos and amorous passion (like Phèdre’s love for her stepson) and his impact was such that emotional crisis would be the dominant mode of tragedy to the end of the century. Racine’s two late plays («Esther» and «Athalie») opened new doors to biblical subject matter and to the use of theater in the education of young women.

Tragedy in the last two decades of the century and the first years of the eighteenth century was dominated by productions of classics from Pierre Corneille and Racine, but on the whole the public’s enthusiasm for tragedy had greatly diminished: theatrical tragedy paled beside the dark economic and demographic problems at the end of the century and the «comedy of manners» (see below) had incorporated many of the moral goals of tragedy. Other later century tragedians include: Claude Boyer, Michel Le Clerc, Jacques Pradon, Jean Galbert de Campistron, Jean de la Chapelle, Antoine d’Aubigny de la Fosse, l’abbé Charles-Claude Geneste, Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon.

Comedy in the second half of the century was dominated by Molière. A veteran actor, master of farce, slapstick, the Italian and Spanish theater (see above), and «regular» theater modeled on Plautus and Terence, Molière’s output was large and varied. He is credited with giving the French «comedy of manners» («comédie de mœurs») and the «comedy of character («comédie de caractère») their modern form. His hilarious satires of avaricious fathers, «précieuses,» social parvenues, doctors and pompous literary types were extremely successful, but his comedies on religious hypocrisy («Tartuffe») and libertinage («Don Juan») brought him much criticism from the church, and «Tartuffe» was only performed through the intervention of the king. Many of Molière’s comedies, like «Tartuffe,» «Don Juan» and the «Le Misanthrope» could veer between farce and the darkest of dramas, and the endings of «Don Juan» and the «Misanthrope» are far from being purely comic.

Comedy to the end of the century would continue on the paths traced by Molière: the satire of contemporary morals and manners and the «regular» comedy would dominate, and the last great «comedy» of Louis XIV’s reign, Alain-René Lesage’s «Turcaret,» is an immensely dark play in which almost no character shows redeeming traits.

Realism and Naturalism

In the nineteenth century, Realism became the dominant trend in modern drama largely through the works of the Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen and the Russian writer, Anton Chekhov. Realism first achieved popularity in the novel, but Ivan Turgenev and other playwright began to experiment with it in their dramas in the late nineteenth century. Ibsen’s work helped to rewrite the rules of drama and were further developed by Chekhov, remaining an important part of the theater to this day. From Ibsen forward, drama became more interested in social concerns, challenging assumptions and directly commenting on issues.

Naturalism was a movement in European drama that developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It refers to theater that attempts to create a perfect illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies: detailed, three-dimensional settings (which bring Darwinian understandings of the determining role of the environment into the staging of human drama); everyday speech forms (prose over poetry); a secular world-view (no ghosts, spirits or gods intervening in the human action); an exclusive focus on subjects that were contemporary and indigenous (no exotic, otherworldly or fantastic locales, nor historical or mythic time-periods); an extension of the social range of characters portrayed (away from the aristocrats of classical drama, towards bourgeois and eventually working-class protagonists); and a style of acting that attempts to recreate the impression of reality.

Modern and contemporary theater

Inspired by the changes in the literary and art world in the twentieth century, in which numerous new artistic movements like Cubism, Surrealism, and Futurism. A number of theatrical movements arose which rejected the nineteenth century realist model, choosing instead to play with the language and elements of dramatic convention which had previously been dominant. These included the Brechtian Epic theater, Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty and the so-called Theatre of the Absurd.

Epic theater

Epic theater arose in the early to mid-twentieth century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht. Epic theater rejects the core tenants of Realism and Naturalism, asserting that the purpose of a play, more than entertainment or the imitation of reality, is to present ideas and invites the audience to make judgments on them. Characters are not intended to mimic real people, but to represent opposing sides of an argument, archetypes, or stereotypes. The audience should always be aware that it is watching a play, and should remain at an emotional distance from the action; Brecht described this ideal as the Verfremdungseffekt–variously translated as «alienation effect,» «defamiliarization effect,» or «estrangement effect.» It is the opposite of the suspension of disbelief:

«It is most important that one of the main features of the ordinary theatre should be excluded from [epic theatre]: the engendering of illusion.»^[21]

Common production techniques in epic theatre include simplified, non-realistic set designs and announcements, or visual captions, that interrupt and summarize the action. Brecht used comedy to distance his audiences from emotional or serious events, and was heavily influenced by musicals and fairground performers, putting music and song in his plays.

Acting in epic theatre requires actors to play characters believably without convincing either the audience or themselves that they are truly the characters.

Epic theater was a reaction against other popular forms of theater, particularly the realistic drama pioneered by Constantin Stanislavski. Like Stanislavski, Brecht disliked the shallow spectacle, manipulative plots, and heightened emotion of melodrama; but where Stanislavski attempted to engender real human behavior in acting through the techniques of Stanislavski’s system, and through the actors to engage the audience totally into the world of the play, Brecht saw Stanislavski’s methodology as producing audience escapism.

Theatre of Cruelty

Brecht’s own social and political focus departed also from surrealism and the Theatre of Cruelty, as developed in the writings and dramaturgy of Antonin Artaud, who sought to affect audiences viscerally, psychologically, physically, and irrationally. Artaud had a pessimistic view of the world, but he believed that theater could affect change. His approach tried to remove the audience from the everyday, and use symbolic objects to work with the emotions and soul of the audience. The goal was to attack the audience’s senses through an array of technical methods and acting so that they would be brought out of their desensitization and have to confront themselves, through the use of the grotesque, the ugly, and pain.

Theatre of the Absurd

Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from their work.

The term was coined by the critic Martin Esslin based on Albert Camus’ philosophy that life is inherently without meaning, as illustrated in his work The Myth of Sisyphus. Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the «well-made play.» In the first (1961) edition, Esslin presented the four defining playwrights of the movement as Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugene Ionesco, and Jean Genet, and in subsequent editions he added a fifth playwright, Harold Pinter — although each of these writers has unique preoccupations and techniques that go beyond the term «absurd.»^[22]Other writers whom Esslin associated with this group include Tom Stoppard, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Fernando Arrabal, Edward Albee, and Jean Tardieu.

Other Cultural Forms

Indian

Indian theater began with the Rigvedic dialogue hymns during the Vedic period, and Sanskrit drama was established as a distinct art form in the last few centuries B.C.E. The earliest theoretical account of Indian drama is Bharata Muni’s Natya Shastra that may be as old as the 3rd century B.C.E. Drama was patronized by the kings as well as village assemblies. Famous early playwrights include Bhasa and Kalidasa. During the Middle Ages, the Indian subcontinent was invaded a number of times. This played a major role in shaping of Indian culture and heritage. Medieval India experienced a grand fusion with the invaders from the Middle East and Central Asia. British India, as a colony of the British Empire, used theater as one of its instruments in protest. To resist, the British Government had to impose «Dramatic Performance Act» in 1876. From the last half of the 19th century, theaters in India experienced a boost in numbers and practice.
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata stories have often been used for plots in Indian drama and this practice continues today.

Chinese

Chinese theater has a long and complex history. Today it is often called Chinese opera although this normally refers specifically to the popular form known as Beijing Opera, a form of Chinese opera which arose in the late eighteenth century and became fully developed and recognized by the mid-nineteenth century.^[23] The form was extremely popular in the Qing Dynasty court and has come to be regarded as one of the cultural treasures of China. Major performance troupes are based in Beijing and Tianjin in the north, and Shanghai in the south. The art form is also enjoyed in Taiwan, and has spread to other countries such as the United States and Japan.

Beijing opera features four main types of performers; performing troupes often have several of each variety, as well as numerous secondary and tertiary performers. With their elaborate and colorful costumes, performers are the only focal points on Beijing opera’s characteristically sparse stage. They utilize the skills of speech, song, dance, and combat in movements that are symbolic and suggestive, rather than realistic. The skill of performers is evaluated according to the beauty of their movements. Performers also adhere to a variety of stylistic conventions that help audiences navigate the plot of the production.^[24]The layers of meaning within each movement must be expressed in time to music. The music of Beijing opera can be divided into the Xipi and Erhuang styles. Melodies include arias, fixed-tune melodies, and percussion patterns. The repertoire of Beijing opera includes over 1400 works, which are based on Chinese history, folklore, and, increasingly, contemporary life.^[25]

Japanese

Japanese Nō drama is a serious dramatic form that combines drama, music, and dance into a complete aesthetic performance experience. It developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and has its own musical instruments and performance techniques, which were often handed down from father to son. The performers were generally male (for both male and female roles), although female amateurs also perform Nō dramas. Nō drama was supported by the government, and particularly the military, with many military commanders having their own troupes and sometimes performing themselves. It is still performed in Japan today.

Noh dramas are highly choreographed and stylized, and include poetry, chanting and slow, elegant dances accompanied by flute and drum music. The stage is almost bare, and the actors use props and wear elaborate costumes. The main character sometimes wears a Noh mask. Noh plays are taken from the literature and history of the Heian period and are intended to illustrate the principles of Buddhism.

Kyōgen is the comic counterpart to Noh drama. It concentrates more on dialogue and less on music, although Nō instrumentalists sometimes appear also in Kyōgen. It developed alongside noh, was performed along with noh as an intermission of sorts between noh acts, and retains close links to noh in the modern day; therefore, it is sometimes designated noh-kyōgen. However, its content is not at all similar to the formal, symbolic, and solemn noh theater; kyōgen is a comical form, and its primary goal is to make its audience laugh.

Forms of Drama

Opera

Western opera is a dramatic art form, which arose during the Renaissance in an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama tradition in which both music and theatre were combined. Being strongly intertwined with western classical music, the opera has undergone enormous changes in the past four centuries and it is an important form of theatre until this day. Noteworthy is the huge influence of the German nineteenth century composer Richard Wagner on the opera tradition. In his view, there was no proper balance between music and theatre in the operas of his time, because the music seemed to be more important than the dramatic aspects in these works. To restore the connection with the traditional Greek drama, he entirely renewed the operatic format, and to emphasize the equally importance of music and drama in these new works, he called them «music dramas».

Chinese opera has seen a more conservative development over a somewhat longer period of time.

Pantomime

These stories follow in the tradition of fables and folk tales, usually there is a lesson learned, and with some help from the audience the hero/heroine saves the day. This kind of play uses stock characters seen in masque and again commedia del arte, these characters include the villain (doctore), the clown/servant(Arlechino/Harlequin/buttons), the lovers, etc. These plays usually have an emphasis on moral dilemmas, and good always triumphs over evil, this kind of play is also very entertaining, making it a very effective way of reaching many people.

Film and television

In the twentieth century with the creation of the motion picture camera, the potential to film theater productions came into being. From the beginning, film exploited its cinematic potential to capture live action, such as a train coming down the tracks directly at the audience. Scandinavian films were largely shot outdoors in the summer light, using a natural setting. Film soon demonstrated its potential to produce plays in a natural setting as well. It also created new forms of drama, such as the Hitchcockian suspense film, and with the rise of technology, the action film. It also became the medium for science fiction as well. Television became not only a medium for showing films, but also created new forms of drama, especially the «police drama» in which crimes are committed and solved within an hour long format, and the «medical drama» in which life and death dramas were played out in recurring weekly episode. From the 1980s both dramas experimented with ensemble casts, which featured not just a classic hero, but a number of different «lead» actors and blending a number of different story lines simultaneously.

Legacy

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance.^[26] The structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception.^[27]

Drama is often combined with music and dance: the drama in opera is sung throughout; musicals include spoken dialogue and songs; and some forms of drama have regular musical accompaniment (melodrama and Japanese Nō, for example).^[28] In certain periods of history (the ancient Roman and modern Romantic) dramas have been written to be read rather than performed.^[29] In improvisation, the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance; performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an audience. Some forms of improvisation, notably the Commedia dell’arte, improvise on the basis of ‘lazzi’ or rough outlines of scenic action.^[30][31] All forms of improvisation take their cue from their immediate response to one another, their characters’ situations (which are sometimes established in advance), and, often, their interaction with the audience. The classic formulations of improvisation in the theatre originated with Joan Littlewood and Keith Johnstone in the UK and Viola Spolin in the USA.^[32][33]

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Banham, Martin, ed. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN 0521434378
• Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead, 1998. ISBN 1573221201
• Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, edited and translated by John Willett. New York, Hill and Wang, 1964.
• Brockett, Oscar G. and Franklin J. Hildy. History of the Theatre, Ninth edition, International ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2003. ASIN B001ANP94I
• Duchartre, Pierre Louis. The Italian Comedy. Unabridged republication. New York: Dover, 1966 (original 1929). ISBN 0486216799
• Elam, Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. (New Accents Ser.) London and New York: Methuen, 1980. ISBN 0416720609
• Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961.
• Goldstein, Joshua S. Drama Kings: Players and Publics in the Re-creation of Peking Opera, 1870–1937. University of California Press, 2007. ISBN 0520247523
• Gordon, Mel. Lazzi: The Comic Routines of the Commedia dell’Arte. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1983. ISBN 0933826699
• Johnstone, Keith. Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre, Rev. ed. London: Methuen, 2007. ISBN 0713687010
• Pfister, Manfred. The Theory and Analysis of Drama,.Trans. John Halliday. (European Studies in English Literature) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988 (original 1977). ISBN 052142383X
• Spolin, Viola. Improvisation for the Theater, Third rev. ed Evanston, Il.: Northwestern University Press, 1999 (original 1967). ISBN 081014008X
• Wichmann, Elizabeth. Listening to Theatre: The Aural Dimension of Beijing Opera. University of Hawaii Press, 1991. ISBN 0824812212

External links

All links retrieved March 5, 2023.

• Illustrated Greek Drama by Janice Siegel, Department of Classics, Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia.