Tikrit University
Theater&Drama
College of Education for Humanities
for the Sec.Year Prepared by
Department of English
Asst. Prof. Dr. Khamis Khalaf
Theatre of Ancient Greeks
The first people we know created plays were the Ancient Greeks, about the
year 500 B.C. They divided plays into two kinds: tragedy and comedy. This
division is still used today. These ancient Greek plays were performed outdoors in
large amphitheatres (land), so that many people could see them. There were
competitions among the playwrights (people who write plays are called
playwrights) and the winner would get
a
prize.
They had a Greek chorus that offered information to help the audience follow
the performance. The chorus comments on themes, and shows how an audience
might react
to the drama. The players
wore masks. Illustrations of vases
show helmet-like masks, covering the entire face and head, with holes for
the eyes
and a small aperture for the mouth, plus a wig. The mask was to .melt' into
the
face and allow the actor to vanish into the role. Therefore, onlookers did
not think
about the actor, but thought about the character.
Middle Ages
In theMiddle Ages (5th to the l5'h century), thecatholic churchbegan to
use theatre as a way of telling the stories from the Bible to people who
did not
know how to read. They wrote Mystery plays, where each part of the Bible
story
would be a play put on by a different group of people. They wrote miracre
plays which were about the lives of the saints. They wrote morality plays
which
taught the audiences how to live a good Christian life.
Elizabethan Theatre
English
Renaissance
theatre-also known as
Renaissance
English theatre and Elizabethan theatre-refers to the theatre of England
between
1562 and 1642. This is the style of the plays of william shakespeare,
christopher
Marlowe and Ben Jonson.
t
The
phrase
Elizabethan theatre
is
sometimes used, improperly, to
in a strict sense "Elizabethan;, only
refers to the period of eueen Elizabeth's reign (155g_1603). An
English
Renaissance theatre may be said to cover Elizabethan theatrefrom
1562 to
1603,Jacobean theatre from 1603 to 1625, andcaroline
theatrefrom 1625 to
mean English Renaissance theatre, although
1642.
Along with the economics of the profession, the character of the drama
changed towards the end of the period. under Elizabeth, the
drama was a unified
expression as far as sociar class was concerned: the court watched
the same plays
the commoners saw in the public playhouses. with the development
of the private
theatres, drama became more oriented towards the tastes and values
of an upperclass audience. By the later part of the reign of charles I, few
new pluy, i.."
being written for the public theatres, which sustained themselves on the
accumulated works of the previous decades.
Drama
Drama is a literary work, it is written to be acted on a stage by actors.
Because
the play presents its action on a stage through actors, its impact is direct,
immediate, and heightened by actor's skills. The result is that instead of
responding
to the words ofa text, the spectators see what is done and hear what
is said.
The facial expression, gestures, speech, and intonation of the speaker (actor)
make
his words more expressive.
Because the play presents its action on a stage, it is able powerfully
to attract the
spectator's attention, especially when the theatre is dark and there is
nothing else to
look at, so there is nothing to distract.
The main tv es of drama
The main types of drama are tragedy and comedy:
Trasedv: a type of drama which presents the downfall of a great man towards a
sorrowful end.
Tragedy refers to more than a strucfure of a story, it draws an accurate picfure
of
man's life who suffers as a result of several errors, and that is why it
stands for a
Z
teacher who wants to teach us that the lesson must be taken. It means that
the
mistakes which have been committed by the tragic hero must not be repeated.
Through the events of the tragedy a crisis must arouse, in which the evil is defeated
in the final result. The price is either the moral destruction of the tragic hero or his
death. The trasic hero is the central character ofa tragic play. A great man who
is
trapped in a situation where he cannot win. He is imperfect. The tragic hero suffers
bad changes in fortune from happiness to misery. In other words, he falls towards
a
sorrowful end as a result of a weakness in his personality which drives him to
commit fatal errors during the events of the play. Finally, he is destroyed. The
weakness within the character of the tragic hero is called trasic flaw. It is a key
element without which there is no tragedy. It is necessary to cause the downfall
towards his tragic end.
In this respect, it is very important to mention that Aristotle was the first
to
analyses tragedy and to produce a definition which still the best attempt to show
what tragedy is. Aristotle defines tragedy as follows: Tragedy is an imitation of an
action (imitates what could be real-life actions) that is serious and complete, and
which has some greatness about it. It imitates people performing actions and does
not rely on narration. Aristotle argues that a tragedy must "achieve catharsis,'
through the feelings of "pity and fear." It achieves, through pity and fear, the
catharsis of these sorts of feelings.
Accordins to Aristotl e:
1- Tragedy must deal with what is serious in human life such as death and fate.
2- The serious action must be complete, must have a beginning, middle, and an
end.
3- Tragedy must not be ofeveryday speech, but ofgrand and poetic language.
catharsis is the aim of the tragedy. catharsis means the purifuing or relieving
emotion. Tragedy must be presented in such a way to provoke pity and fear in the
audience and the result is a type of feeling which is called catharsis.
comedv: a type of drama in which the materials are selected and managed primary
in order to amuse the audience. A basic feature of all comedies is its social
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characters, comic characters are presented in groups and in a social environment.
Another feature of comedy is that comedy tends to be social rather than moral.
This means that it tends to back up with human follies, but not with crimes. The
circumstances of comic plots often lead characters into gross misconception,
misunderstanding, and confusion.
Kinds of comed v ... there are various methods of classifuing comedies; one of the
common methods is to distinguish between the following types:
1. comedv of manners: A comedy of Manners is a type of comedy in which
the social behavior ofa particular group ofpeople is made to appear silly. It
concemed with satirising society's manners. A manner is the method in
which everyday duties are performed, conditions of society, or a way of
speaking.
2. satirical comedv: a type of comedy in which the dramatist
specific aims beyond mere entertainment.
It
implies
tries to achieve
a
fundamental
disagreement towards the attitudes of the society or at least toward some of
them.
3. Romantic comedv: a type of comedy, which presents a love-affair
4.
that
requires or demands a beautiful and engaging heroine, the course of this love
overcomes many obstacles to end in a happy union.
Farce: a type of comedy which involves a ridiculous plot which cannot
possibly be true.
The main elements of drama
The main element of drama can be stated in the following major points:
l.
Plot: The sequence of events of which a play is composed; the plot is usually
structured with acts and scenes and the action begins from the initial
entanglement. It passes three phases:
C- Falling action towards resolution.
A- Rising action. B-
climax.
The order of events occurring in a play makes its plot. Essentially, the plot is
the
story that the play narrates. The entertainment value of a play depends largely on
the sequence of events in the story. The connection between the events and the
characters in them form an integral part of the plot. what the characters
do, how
,L
they interact, the course of their lives as narrated by the story, and what happens to
them in the end, constitutes the plot. A struggle between two individuals, the
relation between them, a struggle with self a dilemma, or any form of conflict of
one character with himself or another character in the play, goes into forming the
story's plot. The story unfolds through a series of incidents that share a cause-andeffect relationship. Generally, a story begins with exposing the past or background
of the main and other characters, and the point of conflict, then proceeds to give
the central theme or climax. Then come the consequences of the climax and the
play ends with a conclusion.
2- character: a character, simply, is one of the persons who appear in the play.
Each character has a distinct personality, age, appearance, belief and alike.
Characters can be divided into two major types:
A- Flat character: This type is built around a single idea or quality. It faces no
development throughout the events and can be described by a single phrase or
sentence.
B- Round character: This type of character is complex because it faces several
developments during the action. Like a person in real life, a round character
is difficult to describe in just a few phrases or sentence.
3- Theme: The theme of a play refers to its central idea. It can either be clearly
stated through dialogue or action, or can be inferred after watching the entire
performance. The theme is the philosophy that forms the base of the story or a
moral lesson that the characters leam. It is the message that the play gives to the
audience. For example, the theme ofa play could be about how greed leads to one's
destroyal, or how the wrong use of authority ultimately results in the end of power.
The theme of a play could be blind, love or the strength of selfless love and
sacrifice, or true friendship. For example, the play Romeo and Juliet, is based on a
brutal and overpowering romantic love between Romeo and Juliet that forces them
to go to extremes, finally leading them to self-destruction.
5- Dialogue: The story of a play is taken forward by means of dialogue. The story
is narrated to the audiences through the interaction between the play's characters,
which is in the form of dialogues. The contents of the dialogues and the quality of
their delivery have a major role to play in the impact that the play has on the
1
audiences. It is through the dialogues between characters that the story can be
understood. They are important in revealing the personalities ofthe characters. The
words used, the accent, tone, pattern of speech, and even the pauses in speech, say
a lot about the character and help reveal notjust his personality, but aiso his social
status, past, and family background as given by the play.
6. Music: This element includes the use of sounds and rhythm in dialogs as well as
music compositions that are used in the plays. The background score, the songs,
and the sound effects used should complement the situation and the characters in it.
The right kind of sound effects or music, if placed at the right points in the story,
act as a great supplement to the high and low points in the play. The music and the
lyrics should go well with the play's theme.
If
the scenes are accompanied by
pieces of music, they become more effective on the audiences.
7. setting: is the time and place in which the actions of any literary work occur.
The era or time in which the incidents in the play take place, influence the
characters in their appearance and personalities. The time setting may affect the
central theme
of the play, the issues raised (if any), the conflict,
and the
interactions between the characters. The historical and social context of the play is
also defined by the time and place where it is set. The time period and the location
in which the story is set, affect the play's staging. Costumes and makeup, the
backgrounds and the fumiture used, the visuals (colors and kind of lighting), and
the sound are among the important elements of a play that dictate how the story is
translated into a stage performance. The Merchant of venice has been set in the
16th century venice. Romeo and Juliet has been set in the era between 1300 and
1600, perhaps the Renaissance period which is the 14th and l5th centuries.
Impo rtant terms:
1. Action: action means more than just physical movement, it involves the
motivations as well, the person's thoughts and feelings, as well as deeds.
2. Act and Scene: Act is the main division of the action of the play. In
England, this division was Introduced by Elizabethan dramatists who
imitated ancient Roman play structuring the action into five acts. Late in the
19th century, many writers followed Ibsen by structuring plays in four acts.
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