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Chapter 6 class notes
Introduction to the Theatre (THEA 1331 )
Houston Community College
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PART 3 THE PLAYWRIGHT AND THE PLAY
Chapter 6 CREATING THE WORLD OF THE PLAY
THE SUBJECT AND VERB OF DRAMA
The PLAYWRIGHT’S decisions set: Time and Place, Characters, whether story is Tragic or Comic.
Also...
SUBJECT MATTER (what is the play about): Historical, Biographical or a slice of life. The playwright creates the BLUEPRINT for the play.
In the “grammar of theatre” the Subject is always : PEOPLE: Their hopes, joys, foibles, and fears.
SPONGE:
youtube/watch?v=Jp0xs1_kw9I
Playwright choose what to focus on or what to emphasize about people:
In HENRIK IBSEN’S play “BRAND” he chose a character who will sacrifice everything: family, friends, love for his principles.
In HENRIK IBSEN’S play “PEER GYNT” he created a character who was always compromising, always running away from conflict.
- In the Grammar of theatre, the Verb is an ACTION.
The subject PEOPLE need some sort of action that defines their character. The characters must ACT.
DRAMA in the Greek means to do or to act.
- A Playwright also provides a “crucible,” or test for the characters. A CRUCIBLE which is a severe test of human worth. Like refining gold the playwright puts his characters through heat that either destroys the metal or refines it.
STRUCTURAL CONVENTIONS:
RULES OF THE GAME FOR HOW A PLAYWRIGHT WRITES
•Here are the “ground rules”. How the game of playwriting is played. These are the rules by which a playwright transforms the raw material of drama into a play.
LIMITED SPACE The characters are confined to a world of their own, no character moves out of that reality. The playwright JEAN PAUL SATRE wrote the play “NO EXIT” he confined his characters to just one room.
LIMITED TIME
Length of time for most plays can be from One to Three Hours
Deadlines are put within the play to tighten dramatic tension.
TRAILER FOR SPEED
youtube/watch?v=Fk4A1AY10U
Time can be used as a driving force behind Drama:
We only have this long (short period of time) till the world ends or, the family is evicted or my son goes to war.
STONGLY OPPOSED FORCES:
We must have opposing forces. One side against the other. Cops against criminals. Jedi’s against Sith Lords. Teachers against students etc.
Sith vs. Jedi: youtube/watch?v=rohKkbk-iiM
In the opening scene playwright poses an initial problem for the characters, establishing an imbalance of forces or a disturbance in their equilibrium that compels them to respond. For example in the beginning of ROMEO AND JULIET Capulets and Montagues are having a fight in the streets.
Day Lewis My Name youtube/watch?v=cevGSGm8Q-g
The characters then walk through a series of OBSTACLES AND COMPLICATIONS. Operating between hope and despair. They win over some of the obstacles and complications they lose on others.
OBSTACLES: impediments put in a characters way which delays or prevents the achieving of a goal by a character. An obstacle creates a complication and conflict.
COMPLICATIONS : Introduction, in a play, of a new force, which creates a new balance of power and entails a delay in reaching the climax of the play.
The book gives examples of Obstacles and Complications in Hamlet that you should take a look at.
CRISIS AND CLIMAX Because of conflicts, obstacles and complications in a play the characters become involved in a series of CRISIS.
CRISIS: A point in a play when events and opposing forces are at a crucial moment, and when the course of further action will be determined. There may be a series of crises leading to the definitive CLIMAX.
The CLIMAX is when the final and most significant crisis is resolved. Resolved happily or unhappily often with the death of a hero or heroine. Another definition for CLIMAX is: The high point in the development of a dramatic plot. The scene toward the end of a drama in which all the forces reach their highest pitch and the fate of all characters is determined.
Great look at story structure: sparknotes/film/starwars/facts.html
Story Structure Lion King youtube/watch?v=hL9N_1uJTgA
HEROS JOURNEY thewritersjourney/hero's_journey
THE DRAMATISTS POINT OF VIEW
STOOGES:
youtube/watch?v=Mw0riLqQBj
- The dramatist provides own point of view on the subject makes the story heroic, humorous, tragic, etc.
One man’s tragedy is another mans farce. Three Stooges smacking each other in the head is it tragic or comic. If the same thing happen in real life it would be tragic.
Our own personal point of view affects how we perceive the play. The playwrights point of view tells us how to interpret the words and the actions of the characters we see on stage.
The director, performers, and designers take their cue from the text, using the playwright’s P.O. as a guide.
The world of the play evolves from this blend of perceptions and ideas. This blend of performers, director’s, designers and playwrights perception of the world taking place on the stage.
ON PAGE 135 there is an insert entitled: Structure in Feminist Plays which covers ideas about traditional structure:
FEMINIST THEATRE CRITICS felt Aristotle’s concepts (from his book Poetics) of the best structure for tragedy was sexist and dominated by Male culture.
This idea of CRISIS leading to a CLIMAX was symbolic of the male sexual experience: foreplay arousal and climax.
Other Feminist called for: new feminist language.
They called for CYCLICAL FORMS of drama without climax.
The world is potentially cruel and unjust.
Let’s look at these two periods and see how they reflected these two viewpoints.
In both periods MAN was exalted above all else. The gods and nature took a back seat. In both the GOLDEN AGE OF GREECE AND THE RENAISSANCE nothing seemed impossible for man. Each society was succeeding in commerce, politics science and art and in architecture, mathematics, trade and philosophy.
The human form was glorified in sculpture. The Greek philosopher of the fifth century BCE, PROTAGORAS said: “Man is the measure of all things.”
In both Societies along with the optimistic, humanistic view, what ran parallel was the idea that life can be and frequently is: cruel unjust, and even meaningless.
Without that second idea, if man and society is completely convinced that he can solve all problems then the atmosphere for the creating Tragedies is less “ripe” or ready.
To show how much of a grasp the Renaissance had on tragedy, and the fear that life is meaningless, lets examine Shakespeare’s soliloquy from Macbeth during that period.
MACBETH She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
NO FEAR SHAKESPEARE
MACBETH
She would have died later anyway. That news was bound to come someday. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. The days creep slowly along until the end of time. And every day that’s already happened has taken fools that much closer to their deaths. Out, out, brief candle. Life is nothing more than an illusion. It’s like a poor actor who struts and worries for his hour on the stage and then is never heard from again. Life is a story told by an idiot, full of noise and emotional disturbance but devoid of meaning.
How’s that for a tragic examination of the idea that life is meaningless.
Chapter 6 class notes
Course: Introduction to the Theatre (THEA 1331 )
University: Houston Community College
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