How to Read a Play:
The Elements of Drama
Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture
Professor Stefan Novinski
University of Dallas Drama Department
April 28, May 5, May 12, May 19, 2015
Please read the Fagles translation of Oedipus found in The Three Theban
Plays for the first class.
April 28 - Introduction to the Elements of Drama
Plot, Character, Idea, Language, Music, Spectacle
The elements of plot: Inciting Incident, Exposition, Complication, Crisis, Climax,
Catastrophe, Denouement
Story vs Plot vs Action
Assignment for next class: Find examples of Peripeteia and Anagnoris in
Oedipus and cast Oedipus
May 5 - How plot affects character: Peripeteia and Anagnorisis
Playing with Reversal and Recognition.
Status Exercises
A closer reading of the Teiresias and Oedipus scene
Assignment for next class: reread all the choral odes and note their internal
arguments.
May 12 - Idea, Language, Music and Spectacle, and the role of the Chorus
in the imitation of the tragic action
Creating a chorus.
What is the music of a chorus?
Assignment for next class: Read Chekov’s The Bear (available online)
May 19 - From Sophocles to Chekhov, from tragedy to comedy, from the
classical world to the modern.
A close reading of Chekov’s The Bear utilizing Aristotle